


Specters and Swindlers

by D3athrav3n92



Category: Danny Phantom, Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bromance, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Danny Fenton Needs A Hug, Danny and Stan are Best Buds, Everyone Needs A Hug, Hijinks & Shenanigans, How Do I Tag, I don't know what else to tag, Mullet Stan Pines, Other, Stan Pines Needs A Hug, They Meet in a Prison, Time Travel, feels trip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 22,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23658790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D3athrav3n92/pseuds/D3athrav3n92
Summary: If Stanley had known that his prison bunk mate was as stupidly crazy as he seemed, Stan would have gone on a massacre, rather than the pick-pocketing that landed him in the minimum security prison in the first place. Too bad one Danny Fenton had other ideas.
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Dipper Pines, Danny Fenton & Mabel Pines, Stanley Pines & Danny Fenton
Comments: 241
Kudos: 756





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi Everyone! I figured it was time to get off my ass and FINALLY cross-post from FF.net! So this started out as a short, drabble-series to get me inspired and to write more, and I'm surprised at how popular it's gotten! So I figured why not post it here so others can read it too? (or if you're like me and you read on both FF.net and Archive, I'm sorry, no new content here...yet). Anyways, enjoy!

They met at a prison.

Thankfully, it wasn't a maximum security or intense correctional prison, and Stanley Filman Pines wasn't arrested for anything more severe than pickpocketing and fraud. So, Stan spent most of his time in 1976 fighting off fellow inmates, staring at his cell bars, and talking with his "roommate."

Said roommate was strange, in Stan's honest opinion. Shaggy black hair, blue, blue eyes, and skinny frame. At first, Stan thought that his fellow inmate would be a complete pushover. But surprisingly, there were muscles underneath that wiry frame, and spades and spades of determination that went hand-in-hand with overwhelming cheerfulness and kindness.

The young man looked barely eighteen, and was a nice guy, despite being in a correctional facility. How he wound up in a prison facility, Stan had no idea. The guy was amazingly tight-lipped about the whole thing, and he seemed to _truly_ enjoy prison life. Or rather, Stan's experience of prison life.

"Hey, Stan!" Shaggy, pitch black hair and piercing blue eyes peered down over the edge of the bunk, eyes curling in amusement, and Stan scowled back up at his "roommate." "Cafeteria's serving Stew Surprise, wanna find out what the mystery meat is?'

"No," Stan said shortly. More of a tanned face and dimpled smile appeared over the edge of the bunk, and his roommate grinned.

"Come on! You only have like three days left in this place anyways, why not have a little fun before you go?" his roommate wheedled.

"Why are you here?" Stan demanded, sitting upright and the face reared back, the smile disappearing completely. "Was it theft? Assault? Vandalism? Decided to bring back underground donkey fights?"

Blue eyes widened. "Those _existed_?"

Stan coughed and slouched a little. "Just an example, kid."

The "kid" pouted. "C'mon, man, I'm in prison! Definitely not a kid."

"Yeah, yeah," Stan sighed dismissively, and he leaned back against his hard pillow. "I'm being serious, kid."

The playfulness vanished from that tanned face, and in an amazing feat of ability, the teen flipped off the top bunk and settled down next to Stan.

He was silent for a moment, and to Stan, it seemed unnerving to see the kid so serious and suddenly…much _older_.

"Because I had nowhere else to go," he sighed, and Stan swallowed.

Memories of a dark street, a duffel bag, a door slamming shut, and a glimpse of a guilty, yet angry face in the upstairs window flashed through Stan's mind, and Stan exhaled loudly.

"Yeah," he muttered. He scratched at the stubble on his chin and slung a sympathetic arm across the teen's shoulder. "I understand the feeling."

They sat in silence for a long moment, before Stan cleared his throat.

"Listen, kid," he said awkwardly. "If you're not here for something _too_ terrible, maybe I can, y'know, bail you out. Once I scrounge up the money. Because you're too nice to be stuck in here."

The teen was silent for a long moment, before he burst out laughing. Immediately, Stan reared up, offended. "I was just tryin' to be nice, kid, but if you're going to be like _that,_ then -!"

"No, no, no, I'm not laughing at you!" the teen chuckled, flashing a bright grin at his companion. "I'm not here because I _have_ to be!"

Stan stared at him. "…What?"

The teen fiddled his thumbs, and tilted his head, his black hair flopping with the motion. "When I said I have nowhere to go, I _literally_ mean, I don't have anywhere to go. I mostly just picked this place because it seemed interesting. Because _you_ seemed interesting."

Stan spluttered, completely flabbergasted. "I-interesting? P-picked this –" He cut himself off, before he sprang to his feet and roared, "Look, this isn't some sort of – _vacation home_ – I mean – WHAT?!"

The teen laughed again at Stan's reaction, and said cheerily, "I've never been arrested – wait, no, scratch that." He paused and scrunched up his face in thought. "Wait, does that time with the Guys in White count?" he muttered, half-under his breath, half-not. "Well, either way, I was mostly just screwing around right now, and suddenly – well," he amended with a laugh, "I met you. You're really entertaining, y'know?"

Stan gawked at his roommate. "I'm what?"

The teen laughed again, and drummed his fingers against the metal bed frame. "You're in here because you _swindled_ people, you have like, five fake aliases, and I watched you talk a guy into giving you the rest of his toothpaste and convince him that it was " _healthier_ for him!" You're one of the most interesting guys I've met in the past fifty years!"

 _That_ threw Stan for a loop. "W-what -?"

The black-haired, blue-eyed _teen_ simply grinned at him, stood, and to Stan's utmost shock, began to float off the ground.

"Danny Fenton, or Danny Phantom," the teen said, and Stan watched, astounded, as a white ring appeared around his middle, and spread across his body. Orange prison slacks turned into a sleek, black suit, with "DP" emblazoned across the front in bold, white letters. Blue eyes turned into glowing green, and dark, shaggy hair turned into snowy, fluffy white.

"Dimension-hopper and half-ghost, at your service!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny's Background

It had been fifty years since eighteen-year-old Danny was accidentally transported to another dimension by his parents.

" _Suck the house into a parallel dimension ONE TIME, and you just can't let it go, can you?"_ his father once complained to his mother, back when Danny was first discovering his ghost powers. _That_ experience had been a strange one, filled with all kinds of weird moments (" _Hi, I'm Matthew Fenton, just call me Mattie! And this is my wife, Jaqueline, or Jack for short. Have you met our kids, Jeffrey and Danielle?")._

Regardless, that was an experience that Danny wasn't willing to repeat.

So when he found himself in the middle of the Great Depression and _thoroughly_ glad he had ghost powers (his moral standard about not stealing might have slipped. Just a bit. In the face of starvation), he found himself incredibly angry at his parents.

And yet, oddly fond at the same time. Of _course_ his parents would somehow figure out a way to strand him in the middle of Florida during the Great Depression. It was _so_ silly, so random, and so, _so_ _aggravating –_

But he still loved them. He saw the expressions of horror and terror when the portal accidentally activated while he was bringing them their lunch, and saw their mad, _desperate_ scramble to grab him before he was sucked in.

In the end, though, it was useless; he spent ten years on this side of the dimension searching for a way back home, to no avail.

Two years later, Danny discovered that he _wasn't aging_.

It was while he was freshening up in an empty motel room. He remembered thinking, ironically, that it'd been twelve years in this dimension, and then looking into the mirror after washing his face. And realizing with a start, that he looked the same as he did when he was eighteen. Same mature and sharpened face, but no wrinkles or worry lines – something he surely would have gotten while wondering whether he would manage to scrounge up enough money for food, or steal it.

And he realized with a sinking heart, he would never be able to remain in one place for very long. He would never be able to instead live in a small town, or in a city, and grow up like humans were intended to grow. He would have to move from town to town, to avoid suspicion, to avoid _the government_ and _lab experiments_ and –

He would stay young, while the world kept going. It was a sad and lonely realization.

Eventually, Danny used his ghost powers to move between states, and tried to keep a low profile, even as the United States began gearing up for war.

Four years later, Pearl Harbor was attacked, and Danny found himself drafted into the US Army, something he was more than willing to do. The more people he helped, the more people he _saved_ , the better off he felt. And _that_ ended up being a nightmare that Danny didn't think he would ever be able to recover from.

He cried like a baby on April 11th, 1945, at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, after he came across a two men hugging each other in death with terror on their faces, on top of a pile of emaciated corpses that contained men, women, and _children_. He knew from his history classes that, logically, the concentration camps were a horror beyond everything else; that they were the absolutely worst part about World War II.

It was nothing compared to the real thing.

After the war, Danny was a mess. Oftentimes, his control would slip, and he would accidentally sink through the floor, or his fingers would light up with an unearthly green light in the middle of a grocery run. Sometimes, he woke in the middle of the night, screaming and feeling a ghostly wail bubble up in his throat. In the end, it got so bad, he moved to the middle of nowhere, somewhere far up north in the middle of Montana. It took him _years_ to recover from that ordeal. Almost twenty years, in fact.

Eventually, he took to wandering, trying to find something to occupy his time, looking for somebody to _help_. He spent many years wandering the US, stopping crime, helping everyday people, and trying to find something to _do_.

And then, Stanley Pines stumbled into his life.

In 1976, he watched the man get arrested, chuckling at the excuses that the man made each step of the way.

"It wasn't me! I was organizing decorations for my dog's birthday!"

"I accidentally drank ipecac and have been stuck vomiting in the toilet all day!"

"I couldn't have done the crime, officer! I was running away from an escaped buffalo at the nearby safari reserve!"

Interest peaked, Danny followed the cops, watched the jury process, and eventually, followed Stan into the prison. There, he easily slipped into the prison, used a clone or two to warn him of approaching guards (and thank goodness security cameras weren't entirely standardized yet, especially in Mexico), and spent the next year as Stan's roommate, while to the other prisoners, Danny Fenton was a literal ghost.

But Danny didn't care. In his opinion, Stan's frankness and attitude was _hilarious_. As jaded and frank as Sam Manson, but wild and imaginative as Tucker Foley. And it was refreshing, after fifty long years of missing his two best friends.

But now, Danny had to resist the urge to laugh, especially when Stan shot him a dirty glare through the barbed wire fence of the prison.

"You're dead meat," Stan grumbled as soon as the prison gate blared and opened, allowing Stan to step out into freedom. "You _had_ to spring that on me, then vanish for the next three days?" Hmm, seemed like Stan took the whole "half-ghost thing" pretty well, after he stopped swearing up a blue streak inside their prison cell.

Danny shrugged, and tugged on the beanie that covered his hair. "I had to be a ghost." He flashed a smirk at the groan that exploded from Stan, and nodded at a nearby car. "Come on, let's get outta here."

Stan eyed the car, a black Chrysler Valiant. "You, uh, know how to drive?"

Danny rolled his eyes, and easily slid into the driver's seat. "Well, it took me a while to get used to driving stick-shift again, because most cars become automated in what, 1980?" Danny paused as he started the car engine, then nodded sagely to himself. "That sounds right."

"You're really something, y'know that?" Stan complained, taking a seat beside the halfa, and Danny grinned and wiggled his eyebrows at his friend.

"Yeah, I know. Being sixty-something, from another dimension, and a freak of nature will do that to ya," Danny said easily, but jumped when Stan suddenly snapped, "You're not a freak!"

There was a long silence as Danny stared at Stan, before he raised his eyebrows and began to pull the car away from the prison. "Oookay," he drawled. "I'm just going to pretend that didn't happen."

"Sorry," Stan offered gruffly, shrugging and scowling out the window. "Old habit."

Danny glanced at his friend, before shrugging and leaving the matter be. Stan didn't look entirely comfortable with continuing the previous conversation, so Danny moved on.

"So, what now?" Danny asked, and Stan glanced at him, eyebrows rising in surprise.

"I – uh, I thought you'd have some sort of idea," Stan stammered, and Danny blinked, staring ahead at the road.

"Oh. Well, this is awkward," he commented flippantly. A beat passed, before Danny cleared his throat. "So, uh, think we should just drive off into the sunset?"

"Sounds good," Stan agreed with a touch of desperation, and flung a finger in a random direction. "Let's head back to the US!"

With a grin and the roar of the engines, Danny whooped and slammed his foot down on the pedal.

"Let's roll!"


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny shows off the driving lessons he got from his dad, and Stan hates it

It wasn't long until Stanley figured out the extent of Danny's powers.

Of course, to Stan, it was a trial by fire when Danny pushed the car as fast as it could go, turned the car invisible and intangible, and _blasted_ past the United States and Mexico border at a speed that rivaled a jet plane.

Danny claimed that it was to get back to the United States as quickly as possible. It had _nothing_ to do with the fact that Stan was screaming for twenty minutes straight before the conman managed to get his racing heart under control.

Nothing at all.

Of course, that led to a discussion about the extent of Danny's abilities, and how he was able to become half-ghost in the first place.

"Well, it was an accident," Danny said in response to Stan's question about the origin of his powers, and Stan gaped at him.

"An _accident_?" Stan's voice squeaked horribly at the end when Danny "accidentally" drove through the middle of a crowded shopping plaza in San Antonio, Texas. He gripped the armrests on the car like his life depended on it. "You weren't born with them or anything?"

Danny shot Stan a confused glance, despite the fact that they were both invisible. "Uh, no? My parents are both perfectly normal humans. Well, if you count their eccentricities and ghost hobby normal."

"Oh, I thought you'd be born with it, like –" Stan clammed up, and Danny's eyebrows rose as they sped horizontally through several highways.

"Okay, this is the second time you've said something related to anything abnormal or whatever. Spill," he commanded, nonchalantly driving through a semi-truck.

After a moment, Stan sighed. "I'm going to need a drink for this."

"Okay," Danny agreed easily, and gave the steering wheel an abrupt yank.

They arrived at a small, desert down, accompanied by Stan's cursing and Danny's quiet chuckles. Danny released his powers on the car as they pulled up to a gas station, and as Stan got out on jelly-legs, Danny called, "Go ahead to the bar; I need to refill on gas." He looked at the gas prices, and shook his head, as if in disbelief. "It's amazing that everything's so cheap," he commented idly.

Stan eyed him warily, almost afraid to ask. But let nobody assume that Staley Filman Pines was a coward. "What do you mean?"

"Gas prices; from where I am from, year 2012, was about two dollars and fifty cents a gallon," Danny said brightly, and Stan shuddered at the high price. "Imagine my surprise when I come back to the past, and it's like, two cents per gallon."

"Well, if you're used to such high prices, then you're paying for my drinks," Stan grumbled in disgust. "Two dollars a gallon, what were people thinking?"

"If it makes you feel any better," Danny called at his retreating back with a twinkle in his eye, "It was almost four dollars in California!"

"No, that doesn't help!" Stan shouted back before he stepped into the nearest bar.

It took less than five minutes for Danny to join him, and they picked a secluded booth to nurse their drinks.

"How were you able to get that?" Stan asked curiously as Danny slid into the seat across from him with a cold bottle of beer. He pointed at the bottle in Danny's hand. "You don't look like you're twenty-one."

Danny rolled his eyes. "I might be perpetually eighteen, but there's no way I'm denying myself the opportunity to drink," he said, flashing an ID that claimed the half-ghost was twenty-two. "Plus, half-ghost metabolism pretty much burns out the alcohol anyways, so I get to have all the effects of alcohol without the nasty hangover the next day," he said with a mocking nod towards Stan, who cursed at his friend's luck.

The gruff man kicked the halfa under the table. "Shuddup and buy me another beer."

"Of course," Danny drawled with fake condescension, before he snorted and waved the waitress over for another round of drinks.

Once the waitress was gone, Stan sighed. "Alright, so you wanted to know why I wasn't _too_ bothered by your glimpse into the afterlife?"

"That's one way of putting it, yeah," Danny said with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

Stan took a deep drink from his bottle, before he began to speak.

"I was born June 15th, 1950 in Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey, along with a twin brother by the name of Stanford Filbrick Pines."

And just like that, the entire story spilled out. Stan's childhood with a twin that had six fingers on each hand, their adventures as brothers and best friends, their dreams, their goals. He spoke of his parents, a father scarred with memories of World War II (Danny shivered at that, and if Stan noticed, he didn't say a single word), and a mother that worked as a fake psychic. How Stanford was given the opportunity to attend West Coast Tech, and how Stanley had accidentally ruined the opportunity for him in a fit of poor teen judgement and anger. How it led to Stanley being kicked out of his home by his father as a result, and how Stan had wound up all over the country, and in prison in three different countries, with numerous fake IDs and an ever-increasing sense of loneliness and desperation.

At the end of it, Danny was silent, nursing his bottle with a contemplative look on his face.

"Well, since you didn't spare a single detail," he said seriously to a slightly tipsy Stan, "I suppose I will have to do the same."

And so, Danny talked about how he got his powers, how his parents' machine activated while he was inside, and how he began to develop ghostly powers quickly afterwards. He reminisced about his friends, Sam and Tucker, and his sister Jazz, and his kooky ghost-hunting parents, as well as the numerous ghosts and villains that Danny had to fight in order to keep his town safe. He talked about the Guys in White, Vlad Masters, Pariah Dark, and how he ended up becoming one of the most powerful ghosts in his dimension, to the point where he was able to convince the others ghosts to help him in saving the world from a meteorite of gigantic proportions. He avoided mentioning Dan, however. That was another can of worms that Danny did _not_ want to open, even after all of these years.

Then, he talked about the second accident with his parents' portal, and how he was sucked into a world that was sixty years behind his own. He spoke of the Great Depression, of how neat it was to actually _live_ in history at first, but then the fight and struggle to just _feed_ his large appetite and metabolism.

"And then…World War II started," Danny finished hollowly. "I was part of the Sixth Armored Division in the Third Army, and it wasn't that bad at first. Yeah, the fighting was brutal, but I was good enough with my abilities that I could disable people, rather than kill them, and I never got shot. But then…" Danny finished off his seventh bottle of beer, and sighed, before setting the bottle aside and placing his forehead in his hands. "We found the Buchenwald Concentration Camp."

Stanley went gray, his eyes wide in disbelief. "Oh god," he breathed, and clutched his own bottle tighter. All signs of drunkenness vanished in the face of Danny's quiet confession, and he swallowed hard.

Danny just shook his head. "Yeah, it was bad," he admitted lowly, fighting past images of corpses, literal _hills_ of dead bodies, and hundreds more victims, all with sunken cheeks, haunted eyes, and frail limbs. "I will never get over it, I think." He swallowed hard, and clutched at his shaggy hair in an attempt to hide his trembling hands. "It's one thing to hear about it, to grow up with it in the history books you learn in school, but god, _being there_ …"

"Y'know, this is getting too depressing to continue," Stan said hastily, eyeing Danny's empty gaze and shaking hands. He took a quick drink of his beer, and changed the subject. "What kind of powers do you have? I know you can float, turn invisible, go through things if our last car ride was any example…"

"Oh, uh," Danny fumbled, and latched onto the new topic with a renewed vigor. "Flight, invisibility, intangibility, I can shoot ectoplasmic blasts from my eyes and hands, duplicate clones, possess people and objects, move things around with my powers, and create a ghostly wail. That's only for emergencies, though. Like, "hordes of zombies" emergencies, because I've flattened an acre of trees before with it. And that was when I was still sixteen."

Stan stared, before gulping. "Yikes. Well, let's hope I never get on to your bad side, Casper."

Danny chuckled in surprise, a flash of an old, familiar school darting through his mind. "Casper?"

"Yeah, like that thingymajig cartoon about the friendly ghost. It suits you. Casper or whatever," Stan muttered reluctantly, a faint blush staining his cheeks, and Danny grinned, feeling his good mood slowly come back.

"Anything better than Inviso-bill. That's by far the worst nickname I've encountered so far," he told the conman.

Stan snorted. "Please. I have an ID that says "Billingus Bush" right now; you can't get worse than that," he informed the halfa with a crooked smile.

"Hah," Danny snorted. He grabbed his bottle of beer, and held it up to Stan in a toast. "To our future; hopefully we won't get saddled with any more bad names."

"Terrible toast, but cheers!" Stan said cheerfully, clinking his bottle against Danny's and together, they drank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since ya girl's been laid off, I'll probably be updating this faster now


	4. Chapter 4

Danny was not happy.

"Please? Come on!" Stan wheedled. "Think of the money we can make!"

"No," Danny snapped and folded his arms. "I don't use my abilities to rip people off. I use them to _help_ people."

"Yeah, you'll be helping me!" Stan argued shamelessly. "And besides, where do you even get your money from? You don't even have a job, as far as I know!"

Danny grinned, a tad mischievously. "Well, I have it on good authority that crime does pay. Or rather, criminals do."

Stan stared at his friend in the dark light of the motel they were staying at. It was old, cheap, and didn't ask a lot of questions; all things that Stan approved of. Plus, having a bodyguard in the form of a friendly half-ghost-ex-soldier was just a bonus.

"What, you're secretly a crime boss or something?" Stan grunted, trying to appear unimpressed, but secretly making plans on how to utilize this new information.

"Or something," Danny echoed knowingly, and when Stan began to frown at him, he shook his head with amusement. "I beat up criminals and take their money," he clarified.

Stan's face reddened, and he snapped in a mix of shock and surprise, "You _what_? What are you, like some sort of modern Robin Hood or something, Casper?"

Stan's nickname made Danny smile. It filled him with a sense of warmth and comfort every time he heard it nowadays. Seemed to beat back the sense of loneliness that was creeping on him before he met the conman.

"Well, while Robin gives to the poor, I use the funds to take care of myself. Besides, I mostly go after rapists, thieves, and gang members," Danny replied easily. He stretched out on the cheap motel bed like it was a luxurious, five-star hotel mattress, and gestured at the gigantic pile of take-out beside them. "My ghost powers come with a huge appetite, unfortunately."

"Then why won't you help me rip off these gullible suckers, then?" Stan demanded, waving the white plastic sheet he purchased earlier for Danny. "You're not taking their money; they're _giving_ it to you."

All traces of amusement vanished from Danny's face. He abruptly sat up and glared at Stan. "I don't like cheating," he said coolly, and Stan shivered at the icy gaze. "It doesn't lead to anything good. But if you keep it your business, then I will keep my problems about cheating _my_ business. Are we clear?" An image of Dan appeared in Danny's mind, fanged teeth bared in a macabre grin while flame-like hair waved amidst a city full of destruction and ruin, and Danny grit his teeth and beat the image back. He turned dimly glowing green eyes on his friend, hoping that his new friend would be able to realize that this was _not okay_ for the halfa.

When Stan gulped and nodded, Danny sighed, and all signs of hostility vanished, only to be replaced with a tired, worn look. "Look, just, don't drag me into your scams, okay? I'll help pay for food, rent, and basic supplies, but I won't be _cheating_ people from their money." Danny spat out the word "cheating" like it was a particularly vile curse. And so, instead of pressing the issue, Stan simply nodded, and spread out on his own mattress.

"Ow," he yelped, and sat up, before twisting around and padding the mattress. After a moment of feeling around, he pulled out a doll arm.

The two stared at it for a long moment, before Danny spoke.

"Okay, I'm a ghost, and even that's creepy," he piped up, a slow grin forming on his face, and with a scowl, Stan hurled the doll arm across the room.

"You said it, Casper," he grumbled, settling back down onto his mattress and flicking on the staticky TV. "You said it.


	5. Chapter 5

"What – what _are_ these?" Stan demanded, and Danny laughed.

"Dwarvez!" Danny laughed, holding up a little figurine with an explosion of white fuzzy hair around its face. He waved it around, and gestured at the veritable army of Dwarvez dolls scattered around him. "I found a shipment that fell on the side of the road, and decided to take them with me! Aren't they hilarious?" He tugged at the fuzzy hair, and chuckled again. "We don't have these in my dimension – we have these things called _Trollz_ , but they look like they could suck out your soul if you keep them for too long," he finished with a shudder.

Stan picked one up, and peered at its big glassy eyes. "I'm kinda feeling the same way about these ones too. Think they'll come to life if we fall asleep with them in the room?"

There was a moment as Danny studied them, and gradually, his look of amusement melted into one of fear.

"Actually, yeah, we gotta get rid of these," Danny said after a moment. He gave Stan a wide-eyed look. "Think they'll end up like Chucky the doll? Or heaven forbid, _Furbies?_ "

Stan gave him a flat stare. "I literally have no idea what you're talking about," he told the halfa plainly, and watched as Danny leapt to his feet. "Why don't we just sell them?"

"Huh?" Danny asked, and scooped a bundle of the dolls into his arms. He gave Stan a suspicious look. "As in, scamming others?"

Stan sighed, and took another sip of his beer. "Fine, how about _I_ sell them, and you have nothing to do with them?"

Danny nodded approvingly, and leaned in. "Good, you're learning," he teased, patting Stan's cheek, and grumbling, the conman batted the cold hand away.

* * *

A few days later, their little motel room in Los Angeles was thankfully devoid of Dwarvez, and Stan returned to the motel room they were staying at, whistling and humming cheerfully.

He strode into the room, twirled his keys, and locked up the door behind him. "Badum, doo, doo wop doo," he hummed, and turned around, only to come nose-to-nose with one scowling Danny Phantom.

"HOLY MOTHER OF – geez, give me a heart attack, why don't ya? Hospitals don't come cheap, y'know!" Stan yelped, clutching at his chest, and Danny's frown deepened.

"You're twenty-seven," the halfa retorted, his voice echoing, and Stan shook his head.

"Still, warn a guy," he complained, but then he noticed the halfa's unhappy expression. "Uh, who died, Casper, you?" He laughed at his own joke, but trailed off at Danny's silence. "Seriously, what's wrong?"

Danny held up a newspaper, and on the front page, it read, _"Candle Holders for your Candle Holders – A Quick Way to Burn Through your Paychecks."_

Stan grimaced, and tried to come up with an excuse. "It's, uh, the rainy season?"

Danny's eyebrows rose, unimpressed. "Yeah, so?"

"Well," Stan said quickly, "these rainy seasons cause blackouts in cities like these, y'know?" He licked his lips. "So, uh, I provided these specialty candle holders to keep stuff like wax inside the original candle holders, so houses don't burn down."

"And I'm sure at a very generous price," Danny drawled, pointing at a number bolded in the article – Fifty dollars, with no refunds.

"Oh, yeah, very generous," Stan agreed, giving Danny a quick smile. When the halfa didn't smile back, Stan rolled his eyes. "Alright, fine, you caught me. But look, Casper, this is how I live my life, how I earn my money. It's something I'm actually _good_ at, okay? And it's not like I have the option of calling home and asking for help, alright?"

Danny held Stan's brown-eyed gaze a moment longer, then sighed. He sank back to the floor, and Stan realized in that moment that Danny had been floating off the ground during the entire conversation. He resisted the urge to shiver. _Creepy_.

"Just as long as you don't drag me into it, okay?" Danny finally relented. "I heard you muttering about using me as a ghost to convince people that the car was "haunted," and charge people thirty dollars per showing."

Stan laughed sheepishly, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Haha, yeah, you weren't supposed to hear that." And when Danny glared at him, he hastily raised his hands up. "It was just a joke! A joke!"

Danny smirked, and floated away. "So, how was your day?" he called over his shoulder, and Stan's expression brightened.

"Oh, man, easily made like six hundred bucks," he chortled. "Suckers didn't know what hit 'em."

"Do anything illegal?" Danny asked, pausing by the motel windows and peering out with a look of confusion on his face, and Stan twiddled his thumbs.

"Uh, why do you ask?"

Danny pointed, just as blue and red lights exploded from the window. "Because there's a bunch of cops coming to a stop in front of the motel."

Stan cursed, and jumped up. "Son of a – they saw me?! How? I checked to see if anyone nearby saw anything!" he cried.

Danny snorted as he watched Stan pack with a frenzy, before he flicked his fingers. The conman yelped when all their personal items in the room glowed, before flying and settling neatly into their two bags. Quickly, Stan shook it off, and began to stuff non-personal items into the bags as well, such as the motel pens, the conditioner, the shampoo, the soap, and the bible. Danny rolled his eyes at the irony. "Have you heard of security cameras? I heard they're becoming more and more popular these days."

"Crap, they must've seen me scamming people, breaking windows, and stealing," Stan grimaced, slinging his bag over his shoulder, and Danny sniggered at him. "Lemme guess – it's a _future_ thing, isn't it?" he demanded.

Danny easily picked up his own bag, and placed a hand on Stan's shoulder. "You could say that," he said, and easily turned them invisible and intangible.

_"Billingus Bush, you're under arrest! Come out with your hands up in the air!"_ a voice blared from outside, but the pair ignored it in favor of escaping through the wall and towards the car. With a simple touch, Danny turned the car invisible, and settled them both inside.

Within minutes they were gone, and Danny finally released his hold on invisibility. He glanced at Stan, and said, "So, what did you steal, anyways?"

Stan laughed. "Oh, man, I didn't tell you?" He dug around in his pocket, and yanked out –

Danny's expression fell flat. "You're joking."

"Nope!" Stan said brightly, shaking the tiny ring case around enthusiastically. "This baby is _so_ worth it! Look!" He opened up the case and jabbed a thick finger at the center of the ring. "Those things are diamonds, man, diamonds!"

"Who did you steal that from?" Danny demanded, exasperated, and Stan shrugged.

"I dunno. This sweaty guy had it sitting out on the table at the café I was passing, so I threw a rock through the window next to him, swiped it in the distraction, and ran for my life," Stan chuckled.

"You idiot," Danny sighed in both amusement and frustration. "The guy was probably waiting to propose to someone!"

The smile on Stan's face fell. "Oh, uh, didn't think of that," he admitted after a moment. Danny snorted and shook his head again.

"Yeah, you're probably only going to get like, three thousand off of that thing. And that's being generous," Danny told his friend.

Stan's grin reappeared, but this time it had a certain edge. "Leave that to me! Just spin some wild story about how it used to belong to a dead celebrity, and bam! Cash money!"

"You're terrible," Danny said with a laugh.

Stan just preened in reply.


	6. Chapter 6

"You should give him a call," Danny urged quietly.

They were standing on the outskirts of a small town in Wyoming, under a streetlight on a brisk autumn night. It was chillier than usual, being Wyoming, but that didn't bother Danny, of course. Being half-ghost had its perks. He was only dressed in an old army jacket from his military days, combat boots reminiscent of Sam's, jeans, and a white and red t-shirt. A cold wind ruffled his hair, and he glanced up at the moon before turning his attention back towards Stan.

Stan stood in front of a phone box, and stared at the number in his hands. He was flipping through the phone book in their motel out of boredom, and had choked at the sight of his twin's name and number listed among the yellow pages.

At first, he was incredibly excited. Maybe he would be able to muster up the courage this time to talk to his estranged twin. However, it now seemed like Stan was having doubts about calling his brother. He continued to stare at the number, unaffected by the cold.

Finally, Danny sighed, and shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Look, Stan, I'm not the one to tell you what to do with your life, or your family," Danny offered quietly, sadly. "But if it were me, I'd give _anything_ to be able to see my family again, let alone have the opportunity to call them."

That seemed to snap Stan out of his stupor. "I've tried calling before," he sighed heavily. "But I kept losing my nerve. And then I lost the number," he murmured regretfully. He frowned at the number, and then glanced at the phone. A look of determination crossed his face, and he gave himself a sharp nod before reaching for the phone.

With trembling, gloved hands, he punched in the number, and held the phone up to his ear.

He held his breath as the dial tone rang through. His heart thundered in his chest, and his palms were slick with sweat despite the cold. Beside him, Danny watched with bated breath.

Finally, there was a click. Stan's breath hitched, and he opened his mouth to speak, when –

" _Thank you for calling the Office of Doctor Stanford Pines. However, Dr. Pines is away on research at the moment. Please leave your name and number, and he will call back when he returns in two years. Hopefully."_

Stan's eager expression fell into a disappointed scowl, and he threw the phone back onto the receiver. Danny gave him a reluctant smile. "No luck?"

"He's away. On _business_. Sounds like he's getting it all in life," Stan mumbled, before he raised his voice, angry and bitter. " _Doctor_ Stanford Pines! Favorite child, the _Brainiac,_ the _Golden Boy_! Away on a trip! Doesn't even have the decency to call his own _damn twin_!" Stan spat with vitriol, before his expression crumbled. He let out a heavy sigh, lips trembling and eyes glassy, and kicked at the ground.

A cold hand rested against his leather-clad shoulder, and resisting the urge to cry, Stan glanced over at Danny.

The halfa looked sympathetic, and even though Stan protested weakly with a tremulous smile, he allowed the time-traveler to pull him into a strong hug.

No words were spoken – none were needed. Stan knew that Danny Fenton would be there for him, and Stan would be there for him.

It was then that Stan decided that he would do everything he could to find a way back home for Danny. He was no genius like his brother, but he would try his best.

Because Danny deserved it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soo I got distracted between working on updating my resume/professional skills and playing animal crossing. No regrets


	7. Chapter 7

It was a year before Stanley Filman Pines heard anything from his twin.

But that year was a very fun year.

Danny and Stan decided that they would simply travel around the United States, sight-seeing, enjoying their time together, and in Stan's case, ripping people off while keeping an eye out for anything that could bring Danny back home. Most of the time, he hit dead ends , such as fake ghost tours, obscure gothic literature, and useless paranormal investigators (Mostly under the pretence of trying to find out more about Danny's abilities, when the halfa got suspicious). In addition to that, Stan's schemes didn't work very well ("The "Rip-off" band-aid? Stan, that thing was giving people allergic reactions!" "Not my problem if they couldn't understand the underlying context of the scam, Casper! It's called the "Rip-off" for a reason!"). There was also one wild night in Las Vegas where Stan was married to someone for all of six hours ("What was her name? Marlene? Mary?" "It's Marilyn, Stan! For God's sake, how were you able to marry her without even remembering her _name_?!"). They were also currently banned from fifteen states, but they both ignored that. It wasn't like anyone could actually stop the two of them.

Currently, they were in a seedy-looking town called Dead End, New Mexico, in a particular grungy-looking motel. The pair of them, instead of Stan running off to scam people and Danny half-heartedly trying to stop him, were reminiscing over a series of photos that Danny had gotten developed.

Danny sniggered at one of the photos of Stan's "Marriage" that his clone managed to get before Danny was too drunk to comprehend anything beyond "another drink." Stan and Marilyn both looked wasted, but happy. And Danny was drunkenly waving upside down in the top corner of the photo ("How are you doing that?" Marilyn slurred, blinking her eyes fuzzily, and Stan blurted, "Special effects! Like in the movies!"). He laughed aloud at the sight of a fantastic, _hilarious_ photo, of him laying _through a wall_ , drunk out of his mind, his lower half intangible, and a casino worker screaming like she had seen a banshee.

That probably would have gotten the Guys in White on him in less than ten seconds in his old dimension, but here, Danny couldn't care less. Especially since it seemed like his clone had taken care of the situation _after_ taking several pictures.

"When did you take this? _How_ did you take this?! You didn't even have a camera on you!" Stan exclaimed, interrupting Danny's train of thought by waving a photo of himself in his underwear and choking on his toothbrush in the bathroom. Danny laughed again, blue eyes bright, and took the photo to look at it more closely. He remembered that day. He had caught Stan crooning Sixties love songs to himself in the mirror when Danny accidentally walked in.

"I always have a clone floating around, just in case," Danny explained with an air of mischief. "…Aaaannnnd if the clone happens to have like five disposable cameras, then that's hardly my fault."

"Of course not," Stan replied drolly, but amusement curled at his lips as he took the photo away from the halfa.

A loud bang on the door interrupted them, and both of them jumped.

Frowning, Stan marched to the motel door with a determined glint in his brown eyes. "Look, if this is about the ketchup on the Dachshund in the lobby of the motel, I had nothing to do with it! Same with the relish, too!" he denied loudly.

Danny rolled his eyes. "Yeah, the dog _somehow_ got it all over itself, from the bottles that were _conveniently_ on the table that was too high for the dog to reach," he drawled sarcastically, and Stan shot him a glare of annoyance.

The conman then huffed and peered through the peephole embedded into the door. His bushy eyebrows shot up to the edge of his thick brown hair when he spotted a postman walking away from the door.

"We got mail?" Stan asked, surprised, and opened the door.

"Hah," Danny snorted to himself. "That won't come out for another few years," he commented, thinking of a certain email system, and Stan shot him a look of confusion. However, after a moment, he just shook his head and leaned down to pick up the postcard.

"I swear, I should charge you five dollars for every "future" reference you –" He stopped abruptly when he turned over the postcard, and Danny straightened.

"Stan?" he asked when the scammer didn't move for a minute. A beat passed, and just as Danny was about to get worried, Stan turned around, all traces of humor gone.

"This postcard…it's from Stanford," he said slowly, with both apprehension and amazement. He showed the postcard to Danny, allowing the halfa to read the words, "GRAVITY FALLS" in big, bold letters. After a moment, Stan flipped it, and Danny caught sight of the words, in a neat, thick scrawl, " _PLEASE COME – Ford_."

Danny took the postcard and began to study it. "Gravity Falls, Oregon? I've never heard of it."

"Why would my brother need me, after all these years?" Stan demanded, ignoring Danny's question entirely. He began to pace anxiously across the motel room's floor. "We haven't been in contact for so long, and just out of the blue, he just asks for my help?"

Danny's expression twisted into one of seriousness, and he pointed out, "Must be something dangerous, or maybe even illegal, if he requires help from a brother he hasn't seen in ten years."

"Yeah, but if it's that dangerous, then it means that Ford's gotten in over his head," Stan countered, pausing his pacing in order to look at Danny. He swallowed. "And what kind of little brother would I be if I didn't help him out?"

"He didn't help _you_ out," Danny replied coolly, and Stan hesitated, before he shook his head.

"No, I'm going. He's family, I have to," he said finally, clenching his fists with determination, and Danny simply studied him before rising to his feet.

"To be honest, I would do the same thing for my family and friends," he sighed reluctantly. "Let's get packing and on the road, then."

They were gone within the hour... _after_ Stan managed to get his money back from the hotel desk.


	8. Chapter 8

It started snowing the closer they got to Oregon. By the time they crossed the Nevada-Oregon border, the snow reached past their knees. Most of the roads were clear, however, and if they weren't, Danny simply used his intangibility to get past the snow with minimal effort.

The entire way, Stan fretted. He switched between apprehensive and eager, worried and excited. He yelled loudly out of the window about how he wasn't scared, about how he wasn't nervous or anything, but then he would curl up in the seat and question his all of his life choices.

"Will he hate me? Will he still blame me for what happened ten years ago? What if he still doesn't like me? Oh man, what if he ever runs into my ex-wife–?!"

"Stan, I swear to god, if you keep questioning yourself, I'm going to go and dunk you into that lake over there," Danny snarled as they passed by a gloomy, foggy lake covered in snow and ice.

Stan shot Danny a confused glance, and asked, "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Nothing, just shuts you up," Danny retorted, and Stan scowled.

"Well, _sorry_ , Casper, I'm just scared that my brother might not be happy to see me! Or that something might be wrong!" he yelled at the halfa, and Danny rolled his eyes.

"Look, whatever happens, happens," Danny told the conman bluntly. "This is your chance to get some closure. Because trust me on this, not having any closure whatsoever sucks."

Stan turned Danny's words over, contemplating them and mulling over it, just as Danny pulled onto a rocky, dirt road. Finally, he groaned and sank back into his seat. "You're right," he said wearily. "Who knows? This might be my chance to fix things between my brother and I."

"Glad to hear it," Danny said with a quick flash of a smile at Stan. "Because we're here."

"Wait, what?!" Stan yelped, hands scrabbling against the side of the car and the passenger seat. "Wait, wait, I'm not ready yet!"

"Too bad!" Danny said with a glint of mischief in his eye, and Stan's hands finally clutched at his seatbelt like his life depended on it.

They slowed down in front of a quaint, two-story cabin in the middle of the woods. However, snow piled on the rooftops, and there were icicles hanging everywhere around the porch. In fact, the entire house, despite looking fairly new, looked deserted or abandoned. The "No Trespassing" sign on the front door and the barrels of radioactive waste on the front porch were a nice touch, Danny thought sarcastically. The halfa turned his attention to the map sitting in his lap.

"Hmm, I'm pretty sure the address is right," Danny muttered, and tossed the map into the backseat. "The money I would give to still have a phone with GPS…" He stepped out of the car, and turned when an increasingly sweaty and paling Stan made no move to get out of the car. "Come on," Danny told the young man with a tentative smile. Then, his smile grew into something more determined. "If you don't come out, I'll _make_ you come out."

Gulping, Stan hastily made his way out of the car. He _really_ didn't want to risk Danny's threat – he'd already been subjected to being possessed, and forced to sing Christmas Carols in the middle of a busy mall plaza in _July_. Oh, the _humiliation_ – it was enough to scar a man.

With no other choice, Stan stepped out of the car, and slowly, warily made his way to the front door. A friendly, cold hand clasped his shoulder briefly, but when Stan looked back, Danny's hand was at his side, like it had never left it.

"Alright, calm down, Stan," the conman muttered to himself. "You haven't seen your brother in ten years. It's okay, he's family. He won't bite."

And with a heavy swallow and shaking hands, Stanley knocked on the door.

Almost immediately, it was thrown open, and Stan opened his mouth, only to come face-to-face with a crossbow. With a shout, he ducked, and Danny sank into a defensive stance, half prepared to either go intangible, or throw up a shield at any moment.

"What do you want?!" a voice so similar to Stanley's, yet so different, bellowed aggressively, and both of them caught a hint of glinting glasses and rough, calloused, six-fingered hands. "Have you come to steal my _eyes_?!"

"Well, I can always count on you for a warm welcome," Stan groused dryly, covering his head.

There was a beat, and both Stan and Danny stayed perfectly still, eyes fixed on the glinting crossbow, before it slowly lowered.

"Did anyone follow you here, Stanley?" A figure appeared in the shadowy doorway, and Danny caught a glimpse of worn eyes, a face covered in stubble, and the slump of a man at his wit's end.

To Danny, Stanford looked just like his brother, nearly identical, if it weren't for minute differences that the halfa's sharp eyes picked out. Ford's jaw was a little slimmer, and not as scruffy as his brother's. However, while he didn't have as pronounced a frown as Stan did, he did have deeper stress lines and crow's feet lining his eyes. Not to mention that his hair was (mostly) trimmed and neat, whereas Stan's mullet was beginning to grate on Danny's nerves.

"You came?" Stanford spluttered out, as if he could scarcely believe that his twin would help him.

"Hello to you too, pal," Stanley grumbled, and Danny could detect a note of bitterness and worry as the conman took in his twin's appearance.

Danny shifted, as if to comfort Stan, but before he had the chance, he was staring down the length of a crossbow bolt.

"And who is this?!" Stanford demanded dangerously, and Danny straightened, his blue eyes as cold as the snow around them.

"Danny Fenton, Stanley's traveling companion and best friend," Danny said, holding out a hand, and resisted the urge to smirk when he saw the confused and slightly hurt look in Stanford's eyes. He knew that he had taken Stanford's place as Stanley's best friend, and hoped, just a little, that the man felt guilty about it. In Danny's opinion, siblings should stick together, through thick and thin. And Stanford had taken the easy way out, simply _ignored_ his brother's problems. Danny knew that Jazz would _never_ have done that. She would have fought and worked as hard as she could to get Danny back – and _had_ done so.

And Danny would have done the same.

However, Stanford had ignored his brother's plight, and continued to reside at home – never trying to get in contact until his twin was needed.

"Stan, why is he here?" Stanford asked, narrowing his eyes, but he yelped when Stan shoved the crossbow away roughly.

"He's here because I want him to be," Stan argued, and gave Danny a slight smile. "I'd probably still be stuck in Mexico if it weren't for him."

Stanford hesitated, but to Stan's and Danny's relief, he set the crossbow aside. However, he then flashed a bright flashlight in each of their eyes, and both of them flinched.

"Hey, what's the meaning of this?" Stan demanded, batting his brother's hands aside with annoyance, and Stanford growled.

"Just making sure you weren't – never mind." He waved them both inside with renewed urgency. "Can't be too careful," he said ominously, manic eyes sweeping the clearing behind them, and stepped back from the doorway.

Stan muttered something deprecating under his breath, but walked inside. Quickly, Danny followed his friend.

And as soon as Danny's foot crossed over the threshold, something flared bright blue, and Danny collapsed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little cliffhanger for y'all, cause I'm mean like that


	9. Chapter 9

It all happened so quickly.

To Stan's shock and alarm, Danny collapsed as something around the house flared blue, and Ford rounded on his brother with terror flashing in his eyes.

"What have you brought here?!" he demanded, pushing Stan roughly against the wall of the foyer. " _What is he_?! I made sure nothing _supernatural_ could enter my home!" The word "supernatural" was spat with such vitriol, disgust, and horror, that Stan briefly wondered what his brother had encountered, before he pushed that to the back of his mind. The slightly shaking hands gripping his collar and the wild, wide-eyed look Stan had in his eyes was more important. And, most importantly, _what was wrong with Danny_?!

Stan glared back and quickly shoved his brother off. " _He_ is a good friend of mine, and none of your business!" he snarled back, before he quickly rushed over to Danny. "Hey, Casper, you doin' okay?" he asked urgently, patting the halfa's face, and Danny groaned, before his tan skin drained of color.

He weakly pushed himself up into a sitting position and stared at his hands with dawning anxiety in his eyes. "I can't feel it anymore," he whispered worriedly to Stan. "It's – it's gone."

"Casper?" Stanford asked in confusion, fear, and wariness, "But you said your name was Danny–" Realization crossed the researcher's face, and suddenly, both Stan and Danny were staring down the glinting end of the crossbow again. "You brought a _person possessed by a ghost_ into my _home_?! And you _knew, Stanley?!_ "

"Not possessed," Stan corrected sourly, ignoring his brother's second question and the hurt that accompanied it (and briefly marveled at how his brother was so quick on the uptake – even if he was slightly off with his deduction). With a shake of his head, he helped Danny back onto his feet.

"Half," Danny sighed, before he shook out his limbs. He still felt as weak and shaky as the day he had his powers zapped from him by Vlad, back in his high school days. "I'd rather not say."

"I don't think you have much choice in the matter," Stanford growled dangerously.

Both Stan and Danny traded worried glances. Despite the expression on Danny's face, the color seemed to be returning, and Stan took that as a good sign. Slowly, the conman relaxed, but he still kept a wary eye on his friend's condition. He met Danny's eye, and he shrugged.

 _'It's your call,'_ said the shrug, and after a moment, Danny heaved a defeated sigh.

"Fine," Danny reluctantly grumbled, leaning against a nearby wall for support. "My name is Danny Fenton, and my parents' research into the paranormal accidentally turned me into a half-ghost, or halfa, if you will. Happy?"

"What are you doing here?!" Stanford demanded aggressively, and Stan groaned at his Ford's paranoia.

"Calm down, Poindexter, he's here because of me!" he snapped, and knocked the crossbow out of his twin's hands. "I wanted him to come with me. Besides, he's one of the most morally uptight ghosts I've ever met in my life. Never lets me have any fun," he finished with a grumble.

"Not my fault you can't go two miles before you try and pick someone's wallet," Danny replied, and he exchanged a small, cheeky grin with Stan.

Ford watched their interaction with wide, cautious eyes, before he sighed and gestured for them to follow him further into the house. "Fine. I'm trusting you on this, Stanley," he shot over his shoulder in a frigid tone, and immediately, Stan's tentative good mood vanished.

" _Sheesh_. Maybe you wanna explain what's going on here?" Stan demanded, trailing after his twin, and with a grimace, Danny quickly followed. He didn't like what was going on, and he liked it even less to not have his ghost powers as backup. "You're acting like mom after a tenth cup of coffee."

Not to mention that the entire house looked like a mad scientist's dream. Or rather, a _nightmare_.

"Listen, there isn't much time to explain," Stanford muttered rapidly, gathering up a pile of papers and a red and gold book. "I've made terrible mistakes, and I don't know who I can trust anymore." He paused, and twisted the head on a nearby skeleton away from him. Man, talk about _really_ paranoid – and scared. Really scared, Danny noted. He was acting like the halfa, when Danny returned back to the US after World War II.

"Hey, easy, let's talk this through," Stan soothed. He looked really alarmed at his brother's erratic behavior, and he carefully laid a hand on his twin's shoulder.

Danny watched Ford soak in the moment of comfort – just a moment – before he twisted around, and Stan dropped his hand.

"I have something to show you," he said, with a suspicious glance at Danny. "Something you won't believe."

Stan huffed, and rolled his eyes. "Look, I've been around the world, and I've met Casper the Friendly Ghost over there," he said, jabbing a thumb at Danny. Said halfa snorted at the nickname. "Anything you say, I'll understand."

Ford nodded, and fixed piercing brown eyes on Danny, still sharp and suspicious despite the bags beneath them. "And you?"

Danny flashed Ford a weak, reassuring grin. "Dude, I'm half ghost, and from the year 2012 in another dimension," he told the twin, whose bushy eyebrows shot up in surprise at the new information. "I'm sure it won't be as surprising as what I've been through."

Ford contemplated Danny's words, but after a moment, he nodded and moved to the side. He yanked on a specific book, and to Danny's and Stan's surprise, a hidden door swung open to reveal an elevator.

Ford led them into the elevator and pressed the "Floor 3" button. The elevator doors closed, and a shudder, the elevator began to descend.

They traveled in silence, and Danny eyed Ford's anxious fidgeting and tapping. The poor man really was a mess, he thought. Maybe he and Stan would be able to help the guy out. However, with all that Danny had seen so far, it didn't look good. It looked very suspicious. Maybe even incredibly dangerous. Black-Market Dangerous, or Illegal-Arms Dangerous. 

Danny's suspicions were confirmed when the elevator doors opened to reveal a gigantic lab with what could only be a _portal_. To where, however, Danny did not know. Slowly, Danny's mouth slipped open, and he stared at the portal with wonder and a small kindling of _hope_.

"There is nothing about this that I understand," Stan announced loudly and immediately, eyes fixed on the strange portal. It was nearly twenty feet tall from base to ceiling, with a ten-foot circular opening suspended in the middle of the triangular device. Strange ruins and writings covered the rim of the opening, and they glowed with an ominous blue-green light.

Danny found himself snickering, especially when Ford gave his twin what could only be a look of fond exasperation before it quickly vanished.

"It's a trans-universal gateway, a punched hole through the weak spot in our dimension," Ford rattled off, stepping closer to the portal with a wave of his hands. He turned back to Stan and Danny, and continued, "I created this in order to understand the secrets of the universe." His expression then grew grave, and he warned, "But it could also be easily harnessed for _terrible_ destruction!"

Stan's heart leapt, and he caught the glimpse of hope in Danny's eyes. _This was_ _it_. _This_ was what would get Danny back home. _This_ is what would help Danny be reunited with his friends and family. And Stanford had just handed them the answer to all of Danny's problems. In the form of a giant portal that Stanley didn't understand.

"That sounds promising," Danny muttered wryly, half to himself and half to Stan, and Ford scowled.

"Yes, thank you, Peanut Gallery," he said waspishly in reply, before he turned back to his twin, who was still staring at the portal with a growing smile on his face. "Anyways, that's why I shut the portal down and hid my journals, which explain how to operate it. There's only one journal left, and I trust only you to take this."

He handed the journal over to Stan, who stared at the journal, then at his twin with confusion bordering on suspicion and fear, his budding smile gone. He looked up to meet Stanford's manic expression, and Ford gave a weary sigh.

"I have something to ask of you," he said quietly, and Danny felt like he was intruding on some personal, intimate moment. "Remember when we were kids, and we had that dream to sail around the world on a boat?"

Stan's eyebrows rose, and something akin to hope crossed his face. A small, eager smile appeared, but it swiftly disappeared when Ford aggressively said, "Take this journal, get on a boat, and _sail_ _as far away_ as you can! To the edge of the earth, and bury it, where no one can find it!"

Stan stared after Ford while his twin paced away, with disappointment and heartbreak on his countenance, before it morphed into anger.

"That's _it?!"_ he yelled at his twin, fury quickly covering up his hurt. "You _finally_ want to see me after _ten long years_ , and it's to tell me to get as far away from you _as possible?!_ "

"Stanley, you don't understand what I'm up against!" Ford snapped back immediately, still pacing. "What I've been through!"

Danny opened his mouth to hastily interrupt, to calm them down, but Stan didn't give him the opportunity to do so.

" _No_!" Stan's voice lashed out like a whip. " _You_ don't understand what _I've_ been through! I've been to prison in _three_ different countries! I once had to chew my way out of a trunk of a car!" Huh, Danny had never heard that one before. "You think _you've_ got problems?!" Stan gestured wildly at his hair, and bellowed, "I've got a _mullet_ , Stanford!"

Okay, despite the seriousness of the situation, that was pretty funny, Danny mused as he frowned at the brothers almost nose-to-nose with each other.

"Meanwhile, where have _you_ been?! Living it up in your fancy house in the woods! Selfishly hoarding your college money, because you only care about yourself!" Stan finished with a harsh jab into Ford's chest.

Ford's shocked expression quickly shifted into anger as well, and he harshly smacked Stan's hand away.

"I'm selfish? _I'm_ selfish?!" he demanded with a low edge of danger to his voice, which quickly rose in volume the longer Ford spoke. "How can you say that after costing me my _dream school_! I'm giving you a _chance_ to do the first _worthwhile_ thing in your life, and you won't even _listen_!"

"Well, listen to this!" Stan aggressively snapped, holding out the journal. He dug into his pocket, and pulled out a lighter and flicked it open. "You want me to get rid of this journal?! I'll get rid of it _right_ _now!_ "

" _No!_ " Ford lunged, and six-fingered hands closed around the book. "You don't understand! This is my _life's_ work!"

Okay, this was getting out of hand. Danny stepped forward, and began, "Okay, guys, knock it off. Stan –"

However, the pair completely ignored Danny, and Stan growled, "You said you wanted me to have it, so I'll do what I want with it!" He yanked the book out of Ford's grasp, and flicked the lighter on again.

"My research!" Ford cried, and before Danny could stop him, he tacked his younger twin, knocking both the journal and the lighter out of Stan's hands.

Quickly, Danny leapt forward, and snagged both flying objects before the twins could recover. However, he realized with dread that they weren't still fighting over the journal – they were fighting _each other_.

Ford scrambled to his feet, but Stanley tripped him, sending the young scientist tumbling to the ground and through the lab's doorway. With a snarl, Stan leapt after him, bodily tackling him to the ground. Danny hurried to separate them, but a kick from both of the brothers sent him flying into a nearby machine. He gasped as searing pain split through his head, and dazed, he sank to the ground, blood already pooling from a large cut on the back of his head.

Heedless to his friend's plight, Stan continued to wrestle his twin with strength fueled by anger. He managed to pin Ford against a series of buttons and switches, unaware of the powering lights and flipped switches.

The portal turned on with an ominous hum, and Danny pushed himself to his hands and knees.

" _You abandoned me all these years, you jerk! It was supposed to be us together, but you ruined my life!"_ Stan bellowed, pinning his brother down, and with a gigantic surge, Ford managed to push his brother off of him with a violent kick.

" _You ruined your own life!_ "

The kick slammed Stan back into one of the activated machines, and Danny's eyes snapped wide open when Stan screamed in utter agony. His head jerked up in time to see Stan collapse, clutching his shoulder as a faint sizzling sound echoed around the room, and Ford scrambled to his twin, eyes wide, horrified, and immediately apologetic.

" _Stanley!_ Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! Are you al – ow!"

He reeled back from the furious punch that Danny threw at him. He stumbled back into the room with the portal and tripped over a switch, while Danny sagged in exhaustion and pain.

"You – you _branded_ him!" Danny snarled despite the world tilting off-balance and the absolute feeling of _emptiness_ where his ghost core usually sat. "He's your _brother! And you – you -!_ "

By then, Stanley had managed to get to his feet, fury and anger towards his twin overcoming pain for the moment. He approached Stanford, seething and clutching at his burned shoulder.

"Some brother you turned out to be," he growled, disappointment, pain, and _fury_ spilling out with every word. "You care more about your dumb mysteries than your _family?!_ Then, _you can have them_!"

He gave Ford an aggressive shove, intending to turn around and leave his brother alone, but something strange had him stopping in his tracks.

Ford, upon being pushed, began to float up into the air, and gradually, towards an ominously glowing portal. Everyone's eyes widened in fear and alarm, and Danny forced himself to straighten.

"Going ghost!" he growled under his breath, reaching for that little _spark_ of power within him, for _something_. However, when he felt nothing, worry, desperation, and alarm sluiced down his back like ice. _"Going Ghost!"_

"Whoa, hey, what's happening?" Stanley yelped, and terrified brown eyes met identical ones as Ford started to float closer to the portal. "Hey, Stanford!" he rushed to the edge of the safety zone, and Ford began to yell out in desperation.

"Stanley, Stanley, help me!" he cried, frightened the nearer he drew to the portal.

"Wh – what do I do?!" Stanley demanded, _begged_ , but it was too late. Danny collapsed, unable to keep standing anymore, and Ford's jacket and legs were sucked into the portal. "FORD!"

"STANLEY! DO SOMETHING!" Ford screamed, but before he could say anything else, he disappeared into the glowing light of the portal.

"STANFORD!" Stan bellowed, but with a crackle of energy, the portal exploded, and both Stan and Danny flew back.

There was a moment as Stan tried to collect himself, and once the lights faded from his eyes and the ringing disappeared from his ears, he sat up.

"Stanford?" he asked hopefully, worriedly, but a small clatter interrupted him. His eyes landed on a pair of glasses on the cold concrete floor – Stanford's.

And in that moment, he realized that Stanford was _gone_.

Heart leaping into his throat, he raced towards the dying portal. "Stanford, I didn't mean it!" he cried, banging his fists desperately against the cooling metal. The lights around the portal began to dim, and Stan threw himself at a nearby lever. "I just got him back! I can't lose him again!"

He pulled and pushed with all his might, but when it didn't budge, he dropped it with a scream. "Oh, _come on!_ STANFORD!"

Only silence greeted him.

Then, an idea struck him. He whirled around, intending to ask Danny for assistance. "Hey, Danny, you know about portals, right?! Fix -!" He stopped, and he paled.

Danny was on the ground, blood creating a sizable pool around his head. Stan stared at his friend for a long moment, stunned, before a small voice at the back of his head told him that Danny was going to die unless he _did_ something.

"Danny! Oh, man, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" Guilt, fear, and a hundred other emotions welled up in his chest, clogged his throat, and he gulped and resisted the urge to sniff. "Hang on, you'll be okay!"

He slung Danny over his back despite the agonizing burn on his shoulder, and began to race towards the elevator. However, a familiar book caught his attention, and he slowed.

The red and gold journal sat at the edge of the lab, mocking him, taunting him for his failures. And with a heavy heart, he grabbed the journal and stuffed it in his coat pocket before rushing out of the lab.

"Please don't die," he whispered into the growing darkness.

And neither Danny nor the portal responded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to the only father figure I can think of in the DP/GF Universes: Jack Fenton. Can't think of anyone else willing to stick their kids into dangerous experiments or stockades and yet be willing to bash in potential suitors with a "Fenton" bat.


	10. Chapter 10

That night was the longest night of Stanley's life.

The hospital he rushed Danny to was nearly an hour away from the small, quaint town. Stan drove as fast as he could, praying under his breath and trying to put aside the fact that he had trapped his twin in an alternate dimension. He would handle that issue later – he had more urgent things to worry about at the moment.

However, Danny seemed to recover somewhat after they left the perimeter of Stanford's house; probably a side effect of regaining his ghost powers. Still, the halfa hadn't woken up, and he was Stan's best chance of bringing his twin back.

Not to mention his _best friend_ , a _best friend that was bleeding out in the passenger seat of the car –_

He let out a shuddering breath after Danny had been rushed to an emergency room, and melted into the hard, cold plastic seats in the hospital's waiting room. Wearily, he rubbed his eyes and buried his face into his trembling hands. He could still _hear_ Ford's cry for help ringing in his ears, and the feeling of helplessness seemed to seep into every bone in his body. What if Danny never woke up? Would Ford be okay?

He knew Ford would blame him for everything. He had heard it out of his twin's own mouth, _accusing and saying he ruined his **own** life_ –

But would Danny do the same? If he even managed to pull through the surgery?

"Samuel Oak?" a doctor asked after an hour of waiting by the emergency room. Anxiously, Stan raised his head, and the doctor seemed to cringe at the devastated look on the conman's face. "Your friend, Daniel…"

"Yeah?" Stan asked, straightening and leaning forward with worry. His throat clogged up. If anything happened to Danny – he couldn't bear to finish the thought. He'd already lost someone important to him tonight; he couldn't stand to lose another.

"Your friend is recovering well. Actually, better than most. It's almost like he has some sort of superhero accelerated healing thing," the doctor reassured Stan with a grin, and the conman let out an explosive, relieved sigh, slumping in his seat. "Of course, as if that can happen, right?" the doctor laughed obliviously. He pulled up his clipboard tapped at a number circled in black, before he gave Stan a comforting smile. "It's okay to visit him – he's already awake and asking for you. He'll be upstairs, in room 322."

Stan nodded mutely and dragged himself over to the recovery room. He stood in the doorway for a long moment, staring at Danny's lean frame and more specifically, the clean bandages covering his forehead. The heart monitor attached to the halfa's pulse beeped slowly, rhythmically, and the sound instantly began to ease Stan's frazzled nerves.

Gently, he knocked on the door frame.

Blue eyes opened and creased in a soft smile. "Hey."

"Hey," Stan responded automatically, not sure how else to answer. He cleared his throat roughly, and scratched at the back of his head. "Uh, so about earlier –"

"Stanley." At the quiet mention of his name, Stan clammed up. Danny was no longer smiling, but he sat up and scooted to the edge of his bed. Stan's eyes widened when his friend made to stand.

"Hey, hey, hey – Danny, wait – you should –" Stan protested, and hurried over to the halfa's side. However, when he reached the half-ghost, he was yanked into a firm hug.

"Don't worry about me," Danny murmured softly into his ear. "We'll get him back."

Stan froze, before his shoulders began to shake.

It was as if a dam had been opened in his chest, had worn down to its breaking point. Tears began to gather into the corner of his eyes, and his breath hitched.

Finally, after hours of stress and worry, it was all beginning to crash down on him, the _reality_ of their situation. Danny looked grim, but comforting and supporting all the same. And his quiet promise had finally brought Ford's predicament back to the forefront of Stan's mind, and the pain of the burn on his shoulder a stark reminder of how much he – _Stanley_ – had failed that night.

With a shudder, Stan pressed his forehead against Danny's shoulder, and began to let it out.

And so, in the middle of the night, at a hospital in the middle of Oregon, Stanley Filman Pines broke down and began to cry.

" _I'm sorry_ ," he mumbled into Danny's side. " _I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean any of it –"_

"It's okay, we'll get him back, it's okay," Danny soothed. And unbeknownst to Stan, his eyes flashed green for a moment.

"I swear it."


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What, TWO updates in one day? WOW AMAZING

The first thing they did upon returning to Stanford's house was break the enchanted barrier that Ford had placed around the entirety of his house.

It was a simple thing – a strange, metallic cord covered in traces of salt and crushed red petals that wound around the edge of the home, against the corner of the wall and the floor. However, it was buried under a thin sheen of snow, so it took nearly half an hour to find it. Oddly enough, as soon as Danny had seen the red petals, he had paled, and backed away, refusing to touch them. In the end, Stanley had to sweep the flowers off the threshold of the house, and once all gathered, throw them away.

However, Stan was determined to have Danny walk inside the house without it being detrimental to his health. So, he didn't complain. He wasn't in the mood for it, anyways. The entire house now felt empty, _accusing_ , since Stanford's disappearance into the portal, and Stanley felt the need to keep moving, as if it would help with the guilt and shame.

The second thing they did was take care of Stanley's horrific burn mark. Stan had refused treatment at the hospital, with a quiet explanation of, "How am I going to explain this? That my twin gave it to me before I pushed him through an inter-dimensional portal?" Danny had shaken his bandaged head and proceeded to gather the necessary medical supplies and inspect the burn.

It was weeping pus and blistering beyond any burn that Danny had ever seen – which was _really_ bad, considering how Danny had lived through _four_ ghost portal incidents (five if he counted the time Sam wished his powers away), and _World War II_.

The third thing they did was _sleep_. They were both exhausted after the day's events, and despite the sound of Ford screaming in his ears, Stan managed to squeeze in a few hours of rest.

The fourth thing they did was work on the portal – figure out how it worked and try to get it started again.

Day after day they tried, oftentimes working late through the night and into the next morning. Unfortunately, they had little to no success.

"We need the other two journals," Danny finally admitted after fiddling with the control board again. "He said that the means of opening the portal were inside all three journals, and the other two ought to be hidden here in Gravity Falls."

"Yeah, genius, except _Ford_ hid the other two journals, and he's certainly not here to tell us where they are!" Stan yelled, hurling his wrench at the portal with a snarl. It bounced off with a metallic _clang,_ accompanied with Stan's frustrated bellow. "Work, damn it!"

"We'll keep trying," Danny reassured him, but the reassurance fell flat in Stan's ears. After weeks of no progress on the portal, Stan felt hopeless. Especially in the moments where he accidentally broke parts of the machine (he was no mechanic – how was he supposed to know that the electrical cords would snap apart if he tried to rewire it?).

Finally, fed up with Stan's moping and depressed mood, Danny kicked the conman out of the house in search of food at the nearest grocery store, Dusk 2 Dawn.

"Hey! Aren't you that mysterious sciency guy that lives over at that cabin in the woods?" a voice asked Stan while he was attempting to pay for food at the grocery line.

He turned around in confusion and gulped when he realized that there was a small crowd surrounding him.

"Yeah, that Dr. Stanford Pines guy! That's you, right?" another person asked.

"Ooh, I would love to pay to see what kind of mystery science stuff you got going on in your house!"

And slowly, a smile crept over Stan's face.

* * *

"Absolutely not."

"C'mon, Casper, we gotta raise funds if we want to keep this place," Stan begged, gesturing at the dusty cabin around them. "If we turn it into a museum or something, we'll be able to keep this place _and_ keep working on the portal."

"I don't like the idea of letting other people into your twin's home just to stare at his research," Danny argued, folding his arms. But then he slumped, dropping his stiff posture with a defeated sigh. "But you're right. We need the money, and I won't be able to get a job because of my…age."

"You mean your lack of aging, Casper," Stan told him frankly, and Danny rolled his eyes.

"Oh, yeah, right, silly me, of course that's what the problem is," Danny drawled sarcastically. He rubbed tiredly at his eyes. He'd been up all night, trying to decipher the journal in hopes of finding a clue to the other journals. "Look, do what you want. But we'll need to keep this whole business down below a complete secret from everybody. Oh," Danny added with a blink, "one of my clones found strange metal signs hammered onto the trees surrounding the lot. I was going to check them out, and maybe they'll have a hint to where we can find the other journals."

"You think so?" Stan asked, and Danny hummed thoughtfully.

"I hope so. But they're only on the trees circling the clearing, so perhaps not. But it wouldn't hurt to try, right? If we want that chance of getting your brother back, we'll have to comb this entire area."

Stan scowled. "You don't have to tell me twice." He looked down at the kitchen table, where Stanford's glasses continued to sit after weeks of disuse. "…Do you think he hates me for this?" he asked in a small voice, and it broke Danny's heart to see his best friend (his only friend) look so unsure and upset.

He carefully slung an arm around Stan's shoulders, mindful of the healing burn. "Honestly, I'm sure he'd be angry, but I don't think he'll ever hate you. He did ask for you to come and help him, even after all these years of being out of contact. It means that he still trusts you."

"Yeah, he trusted me, and look where that got him," Stan sighed bitterly. He shrugged Danny's arm off. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I have a tour I have to prepare for."

* * *

A knock on the door interrupted Stan after that first disastrous tour, and with a grumble, the conman tromped towards the door.

"Whaddya want?" he grunted as he swung it open, only to pause at the man standing before him. He looked very much like Stanford, before the portal had sucked him in - ratty, disheveled, mousy brown hair, with too-much-terror for not-enough-sleep lines of worry. He fiddled with his trembling hands, manic eyes sweeping the ground and the floor from behind thick glasses, and not daring to meet Stan's eyes.

"S-Stanford, Ah - Ah jus' wanted -" he stuttered in a thick southern accent, and Stan grunted.

"Spit it out, I don't have all day," the conman told the man.

It was then that the man raised his eyes and connected with Stan's.

Bloodshot eyes grew to epic proportions, and he wheezed, before he took a trembling, terrified step back. "Y-yer not Stanford," he stammered in shock.

And just like that, fear and apprehension washed through Stan. His secret was going to get out, this man _knew_ Stanford, _knew_ that Stanford was supposed to be here, that _Stanley_ was just an _imposter, a doppelganger, someone that took Stanford's place_ -

"Stan?" Danny asked, appearing at the conman's elbow. Icy blue eyes swept over the nervous, _terrified_ wreck of a man, and he asked, "What's going on?"

But then, the oddest thing happened. The man, whom he later found out to be named Fiddleford McGucket, just shook his head, and stepped off the porch, looking both oddly calm and determined - a far cry from the shaking, wheezing man he was before.

"Ah'll jus' ferget 'bout it," he muttered to himself, before he wandered away, down the worn path and towards the woods. "Ah'll jus' ferget 'bout it."

And if the man's eyes seemed slightly crossed the next time they met, and that he had no recollection of _ever_ meeting the two of them - or _Stanford -_ then they didn't say a single word.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my favorite chapters by FAR

"Hey, Casper, over here!"

Danny's lips quirked at the nickname, and quickly, he crossed the diner to slide into the booth seat opposite of Stan's.

"Hey, so I didn't know what you wanted, so I went ahead and ordered for you," Stan told his friend cheerfully, just as a server placed two miniature cups of ketchup and mustard in front of Danny, and a full order of pancakes in front of the conman.

Danny took a moment to stare incredulously at the order before he shot a flat look at his friend, who snickered impishly at him. While Stan might have changed a little in the past ten years, with no mullet in sight and a hint of wrinkles, his sense of humor certainly hadn't.

"Hilarious," Danny offered drolly, and he flagged a waitress down. "Hey, can I get the number one special with an extra order of pancakes, bacon, and hash browns?"

The waitress stared at him, eyes wide, and cleared her throat. "Uh, _all_ of that, sir?" she squeaked, surprised, and Danny studied her for a moment. Bright red hair, green eyes, freckles – wasn't she dating that lumberjack guy, Teenage Dan?

Danny nodded certainly, and gave her a wide grin. "High metabolism," he offered in lieu of explanation, and the girl nodded hurriedly before making her way back to the kitchen.

Stan scowled at Danny, pointing a fork slathered in syrup at the halfa's face. "You just like draining all of my hard-earned money, don't you?" he growled, mock-seriously, and Danny nearly laughed in his face.

"Hard-earned?" he asked dubiously, learning forward across the table to swipe one of Stan's pancakes, but the tourist-trap owner blocked the fork with a snort and a clang of metal. "Stan, I _literally_ watched you cover a rock with fur and feathers in five minutes, and place it in your museum as 'A Winkleberry's Egg.' How is that hard work?"

Stan chortled aloud. "The hard work is just convincing those moneybags that it's real! I have to talk to 'em!"

Danny rolled his eyes, and this time, successfully stole one of Stan's pancakes. "My point exactly."

"Anyways, wanna explain why you're, uh…" Stan trailed off, waving at his friend. Since arriving at the diner, Danny had been covered in dirt, twigs, and leaves, and his cheeks were tinted red, with his shaggy black hair sticking in all directions. "Did you go crawling through dirt again? Or did you get stuck in another warding circle left behind?"

Danny snorted and shook his head, before one of his hands crept up to massage his sides. "Nah, I ran into one of those Leshi things mentioned in the journal."

Stan's brow furrowed, and he opened his mouth in confusion. He hadn't read the journal, other than combing through it for anything related to the portal. He basically skipped all the creature entries. "Sorry, what?"

"Leshi, it's like a forest spirit," Danny explained with a rueful shake of his head. "The journal only said that, in order to avoid being captured, you have to wear your shoes on opposite sides of your feet, and your clothes inside out, but I thought it was just a joke…"

Stan's eyebrows rose, and despite himself, he leaned forward in interest. "So, what happened?"

Danny's cheeks turned a deeper red, and he mumbled, "He took me to a cave and tried to tickle me to death."

There was a moment of silence before Stan began to howl with laughter, banging on the table at the face of Danny's misfortune. The diner's occupants swiveled around to stare at the booth, but when all they saw was Stan laughing and pointing at the halfa, they all shrugged and returned to their meals.

Danny, however, was unamused. "So glad to hear you enjoyed my suffering," he said dryly, as their waitress set down Danny's food. When all Stan did was continue to laugh at him, Danny sulkily began to eat.

After a few minutes, Stan calmed down, wiping his eyes. "Man, I haven't laughed that hard in ages," he admitted. " _Please_ tell me you got pictures."

Danny grumbled incoherently, most likely something imprecating, but it was lost to a mouthful of crispy bacon.

A small clatter drew their attention to the edge of their table, where a small, disposable camera suddenly appeared, as if dropped by an invisible hand, and both Stan and Danny stared at it.

Then, they both lunged.

Plates and cutlery screeched as they dove for the camera, and Danny found himself getting a faceful of hash browns while Stan crowed his delight, his suit front dripping with syrup and butter.

"Hah! Victory is mine, sucker!" Stan cheered, waving the camera tauntingly before he stuffed it into his pocket. "It's hilarious how your own clones turn against you!"

"Mmmfch," Danny said into his potatoes.

"Now, boys, behave!" a loud voice interrupted them, and they both looked up into the face of the owner of the diner, Lazy Susan.

Stan felt a small twinge of guilt whenever he saw the woman's eye. It'd only been ten years since he accidentally shot her in the eye with that strange gun on the first tour of the Mystery Shack (now hidden in the depths of his office, never to be seen again), and that time had unfortunately gifted her with her new nickname, courtesy of the lazy eye. But regardless, he pasted on a bright smile, and said, "Aww, don't worry, sweet cheeks, we were just messing around! And by the way, you look yummier than a stack of pancakes, if I must say."

"You must?" Danny repeated, his voice muffled.

Stan kicked him under the table.

Susan, flattered, batted her eyes…or rather, tried to. That lazy eye made it very difficult to do so. "You flatterer! Hush, you!" She then turned to Danny, and passed the halfa a napkin. "And Danny, you haven't changed a single bit, since the day you arrived! What's your secret? You look as young as ever!"

Oh no, here it was. Stan and Danny traded worried glances with each other, and Danny opened his mouth, scrambling for an answer.

"Uh, well, it's because I have an Asian heritage, you see?" Danny fibbed quickly, shooting half-panicked looks at Stan for assistance. "I'll probably look this way until I hit fifty, like, y'know, because of menopause." And then felt the need to punch himself, as well as an _actual_ punch from his invisible clone, because _that was the stupidest excuse in the history of ever_.

Across the table, Stan stared at him, horrified, and mouthed, " _Menopause_?!"

However, Susan nodded sagely. "That's true!" she agreed loudly. "I can never tell how old you Asians are." She passed Danny another napkin, and patted his new leaf-twig-and-potato hairdo. "Stay out of trouble now!" And as she wandered away, they heard her mumble loudly to herself, "What a cutie…"

They both stared after her, mouths silently working and their brains momentarily broken, before Stan said, in a strangled tone of voice, "I think, when we get home, I'm going to have a drink, and reconsider my entire life."

Danny just nodded in agreement, to stunned for words.

And thanks to Lazy Susan, the rumor spread like wildfire, fueled by small-town gossip. Later, he was cornered by a very young Korean lady during his usual grocery run, who told him that he would be a very pretty woman if only he dressed like one ("What?!" Danny had squawked, mortified beyond belief, "Wait, no, I'm not a girl!"), and tried to inquire on his heritage. When Danny hastily stammered out Japanese, the young woman nodded to herself and then wandered away, muttering angry Korean under her breath.

Needless to say, after Stan found out about the entire incident, he laughed for nearly a _week_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What? No, I'm not trying to impose any gender-confusion on Danny, you must be seeing things
> 
> Also the Japanese and the Koreans have had a rocky history thanks to the Colonization of Korea and WWII so don't @ me


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter from stage right, Soos and Wendy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So guess who's been working?! After three months of no unemployment benefits, another three months of no work, and one gray hair from stress, I got a job! While I do love the work from home aspect, it unfortunately makes me want to be on my computer a lot less. So that's why this chapter is so late. 
> 
> Also suffer because Dipper and Mabel aren't in this story...yet

Years passed since Stanford's disappearance into the portal, and both Stanley and Danny became acquainted with living within the wooden cabin. Stanley turned his brother's house into The Mystery Shack (after faking his own death and assuming Stanford's identity with a little help from the neighborhood's friendly ghost), and ran tours to raise money while Danny (the more mechanically and science-minded of the duo) worked down in the basement in an attempt to get the portal to work, or wandered the woods and town looking for the other two journals. He didn't have much luck – his searches often ended in vain, thanks to the strange woodland creatures inhabiting the forest around the small town.

Soon, it'd been thirty-four years, and Danny woke at seven in the morning to Stan yelling into a phone. Something that happened more often than not – the number of telemarketers that tried to contact them was astounding. Danny couldn't remember having that many callers back in his old dimension.

"What? You better be sending some sort of compensation for this!" There was a pause, before Stan grumbled, "So what if I haven't met them before? Shermie, why don't you just watch them for the summer?!" Wait, Danny realized, that didn't _sound_ like a telemarketer; the conversation was all wrong. There was another beat of silence, and finally, Stan let out an explosive sigh. "Fine, fine, I'll let them come for a bit. I suppose it'll be nice to meet them – yeah, yeah, love you too, Shermie."

Groaning, Danny rose from his bed and dressed into a pair of basketball shorts and an old t-shirt, before stepping out of his bedroom. It was located next to Stan's, and across the hall from Ford's old room. The Mystery Shack had seen a lot of renovation since the change of ownership, and it was bigger than before. And while Stan couldn't care less about the upkeep of the place (because it cost money and Stan was a frugal man – frugal enough that he wouldn't waste time on anything beyond superficial appearances), Danny occasionally replaced the wallpapers, the rugs, the paints, and other necessities.

"What was that all about?" he asked Stan when he reached the kitchen.

Stan had grown in the past thirty-four years. Gone was his dark brown hair – it was now as gray as the sleek metal dishwasher that Danny recently installed. He had a heavy five o'clock shadow on his face, glasses because of his cataracts, wrinkles, and a small hearing aid. However, Danny refused to let his friend go to waste despite his age, and so forced the man to spar with him down in the basement every morning. So even though his friend was getting older, he was still in good shape.

Stan grumbled at the wireless phone in his hand and threw it onto its charging dock. "My younger brother – Shermie, you remember him? He wants me to watch his grandkids for the summer. Their parents have some stuff to work out, and they wanted the kids to stay with him, but he's going through Chemotherapy and won't be able to take care of them."

"So, they'll be staying here for the summer?" Danny asked, leading the way down into the basement past the vending machine. They replaced the old bookshelf with something a little more innocuous, modern, and non-cliché to hide the secret passage, and it came with a bonus – snacks. "When are they coming?"

"Tomorrow. We'll just have to be careful to not let them see anything too suspicious," Stan grumbled. He barely glanced at the portal before they began their spar, and Stan ducked Danny's swift jab. "We're getting close. I can feel it."

Danny grinned, a tired, old smile on his youthful face. "I agree. We've got nearly everything fixed up – we just need to figure out the right combination of pressure and codes to get it started again."

They continued to spar, and like usual, Danny emerged triumphant.

"It's not fair," Stan complained for the thousandth time in nearly forty years as they made their way back up to the main floor and began their breakfast. "You have like ninety years on me, with actual military training."

"It probably doesn't help that my mom was a ninth degree blackbelt, and that she trained me, too," Danny agreed easily, pulling out his cell and flicking through his stocks. "Made another two hundred today from that investment into Harvey's. They're really doing well."

"Y'know, this makes me glad you're my friend," Stan cackled as he opened the fridge. "It makes playing the stock market so much easier. Those poor Wall Street suckers don't know what hit 'em."

Danny shrugged carelessly and stowed his phone away. "It's not my fault this dimension is pretty much the same as my own," he replied cheerily. He began to prepare himself a cup of coffee. "It was the easiest way to raise money for what we need once we got internet service here."

"Yeah, and we'll probably need to make more in order to provide for the two little gremlins that'll be living under our roof," Stan mused as he began to crack eggs open into a pan, and Danny rolled his eyes. It's not like kids were _that_ expensive. "Think they'll be any good at counterfeiting?"

Danny shot Stan a disapproving glare over the top of his mug. "Stanley Filman Pines, _no_."

Stan shrugged, not perturbed in the least from Danny's glare. "Eh, I'll see when they get here. What do kids like to do these days, anyways?"

"Video games," Danny replied easily, remembering his favorite pastime as a teen. "We have that old Atari system, which is probably retro-enough that they'll like it, but not spend all their time on it."

"I'm sorry, retro – what?" Stan asked, frowning and rubbing his head in confusion. "I don't understand this generation. How do you even keep up?"

Danny smirked. "Probably because I was originally a part of this generation in the first place, Stan. It's you old-timers that I have trouble keeping up with," he teased. "Like the eighties? What was up with that?"

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," Stan muttered sourly as he tipped fried eggs onto a plate. "I never understood your aversion for bell-bottom pants until five years later."

Someone knocked on the front door, and before either Danny or Stan could react to the noise, it opened.

"Good morning, Mr. Pines! Mr. Fenton!"

Jesus "Soos" Ramirez began working for the pair ten years ago, mostly because he loved the Mystery Shack. And mostly because Danny couldn't be bothered with fixing and cleaning everything unless it was necessary, simply because he was gone most of the time. Soos was a big guy and was once told by Stan that he looked like a giant, hairless gopher. He was also not the smartest guy on the block ("Hey, Danny, dude, I swear, you're, like, getting younger every time I see you! Those meds you take must be great!"). He was a pretty amicable guy, however, and got along well with Danny, Stan, and the Shack's only other employee, Wendy Corduroy.

Wendy had only been working at the shack since the previous summer as a cashier girl in the Mystery Shack's gift shop. She was laid-back, easygoing, and probably one of the more terrifying girls that Danny had ever met. She did lumberjack competitions with her family, knew how to wield an axe like a pro, and had impeccable aim.

"Soos, good timing," Danny said, taking a slice of fried egg and chewing on it. "We're going to be having more company this summer."

"Really?" Soos asked eagerly, pulling up a seat at the neat kitchen table. "Who?"

"My younger brother's grandchildren," Stan grumbled, beginning to cook a small pile of bacon. "Shermie can't watch them for the summer, so they'll be coming here to stay with us."

"Cool! It'll be nice to have some other people at the shack for once!" Soos said excitedly, and Danny clapped the young mechanic on the shoulder.

"We thought that it would be a good idea for you to turn the attic into a third bedroom for the kids," Danny informed him. He fished into his pocket, and pulled out his wallet, before handing a wad of cash over to the mechanic. "Use that to get it set up and ready – y'know, beds, a carpet – actually, wait, why am I telling you this?" he sighed, snatching the money back and stowing his wallet away. He grabbed a few pieces of bacon and made his way to his bedroom to freshen up. "Knowing you, you'll probably decorate the room with Pac Man memorabilia or something."

"Haha, you got me, dude!" Soos chuckled good-naturedly. "Totally was thinking of that!"

Danny rolled his eyes, and stepped into the bedroom, in time to hear Stan lecture Soos about the state of the public bathrooms.

He had a lot to prepare for tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone want to beta-read a Dragon Age fanfic I've been working on or a One Piece/OC fanfic? or just interested in reading it? or should I just screw it and post them


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the Kudos! Meant to get this up last night, but ended up participating in a twitch stream instead for Halloween :3
> 
> AND LOOK YOU GUYS I GOT FANART!!!!! https://willy-0-wisp.tumblr.com/post/630928453111365632/i-really-like-specters-and-swindlers-so-i-drew  
> MoonShadowPup thank you!! You are so talented I love it!!!!

"Welcome to the Mystery Shack!"

A pair of twins, a boy and a girl, squinted up at the older man. The sight of them originally sent pangs of guilt and longing through Stan. Twins, just like him and Stanford. But quickly, he brushed it aside in favor of giving the pair a cheesy smile. "I'm your Great-Uncle Stan. Call me Grunkle, though, because it takes too long to say Great-Uncle, and time is money!"

The girl of the pair seemed to take an immediate liking to her "Grunkle" Stan, because she flung herself at Stan with a bright smile and a hug, like a squirrel dosed with too much caffeine and glitter.

"I'm so glad to meet you! I'm Mabel, and this is Dipper!" she said enthusiastically. She lowered her voice, as if conspiratorially, but her voice still carried across the clearing. "He's not too happy about being here."

"Still can hear you, Mabel," the boy groused, coming to stand next to his twin with a sulk. Danny studied the pair. They were short, on the brink of puberty and growth spurts. Both had thick chestnut hair, much like Stan's when he was a young man in the seventies and eighties, and were nearly identical, if it weren't for their clothes, their hairstyles, their genders, and the difference in facial expressions. Mabel looked happy to be there, an explosion of glitter and smiles, but Dipper looked like someone had murdered his dog and was seeking revenge.

All in all, they were kinda cute.

"Nice to meet you, kids," Stan said brightly, and he gestured towards Danny, who gave the pair of twins a small wave of greeting and a wide smile. "This is Danny Fenton, co-owner of the Mystery Shack and a family friend."

Danny could have sworn that Mabel's eyes grew three times their original size when they landed on him, and beside her, Dipper groaned.

"Mabel, no," he sternly told his twin, but the young girl threw herself at the halfa. Danny and Stan watched with amusement as she leaned in, like she was sharing some sort of deep secret.

"On a scale of one to America, how free are you tonight, handsome?" she asked eagerly, batting her eyes, and there was a _thwack_ noise as Dipper smacked his forehead in frustration. Danny, on the other hand, burst out into incredulous, raucous laughter at the ridiculous pickup line while Stan chortled.

"Uh, Mabel, was it?" At the girl's nod (whose gaze never left Danny, who began to howl with laughter, nearly bent double in a futile attempt to reign in his mirth), Stan continued, "Mabel, he's _way_ too old for you. Trust me on this."

She deflated, disappointed, before she perked up. "Well, I'm sure I'll have other opportunities to woo boys while I'm here," she said optimistically, before she started to make her way into the house. She stopped, however, at the front porch, bent over, and said, "Hello, my good worm sir! How are you this fine day?"

"Is she serious?" Danny choked out, wiping his eyes, a little confused but mainly amused by the girl's quirkiness, and Dipper sighed in aggravation.

"Yeah, all the time," he answered with a grumble. Danny smiled. He could only imagine what it was like to have a sister like Mabel – Jazz was mostly normal, save for her ability to come up with the _stupidest_ names on this side of the ghost zone. And maybe her own, ghost-hunting abilities.

"Sounds like fun." Danny turned to Dipper and gestured inside with a quick jerk of his head. "Well, why don't we show you around?"

"Sounds _great_ ," the young man grumbled sarcastically, and Danny chuckled at the belligerence, before he turned to Stan.

"Hey, Stan, don't you have a tour starting soon?" he asked, and Stan yelped, glancing at his watch, before hurrying back towards the shack.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do, Casper!" he called over his shoulder, and Danny groaned.

"That's, like, everything except for murder," he called back, and ignored Stan's cackle in favor of Dipper's quiet, "Casper?"

"Nickname that Stan gave me a long time ago," Danny said with an exaggerated roll of his eyes and a wink. "Keeps complaining that I keep popping up like a ghost."

"Alright," Dipper conceded, and followed Danny into the house.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, the twins had settled in their new room, and Danny watched them play outside.

Mabel looked like she was having a blast, rolling down hills covered in grass with a squeal of delight, but Dipper, on the other hand…

"He looks like he's trying not to straight up _jack_ someone's car," Wendy commented with an easy laugh, looking out of the window.

Danny leaned against the windowsill. "Maybe he'll make a friend with that woodpecker," he said, pointing at the woodpecker that was pecking at the dark green and brown hat on Dipper's head. He spotted someone creeping closer to the kid and groaned. "Oh, no, Stan, _don't_ , he just got here –"

" _Boo!_ " he heard Stan shout through the ridiculous fish-head mask, and with a squeal, the male twin fell over to Stan's uproarious laughter.

Stan continued to laugh, until a coughing fit overtook him, and pounding on his chest, he gasped out, "Ah, it was worth it!"

Dipper did not look impressed.

Danny sighed, and headed out to shoo Stan back to the tour group he was supposed to be leading.

* * *

"So, Danny," said a coy voice, arms draping over the side of the couch by Danny's head, and Mabel's brace-filled smile entered his line of sight, "How long have you lived in Gravity Falls?"

Danny hummed, tapping the remote and watching the channels flick by on the TV. It was late in the evening, and they had just finished closing the Mystery Shack for the day. Stan was still checking inventory and profits for the day, while Danny relaxed by the television. "A good long while," the halfa replied evasively, pausing on a channel that blared something about "Throwable Hedgehogs" (" _What_?" Danny spluttered under his breath), before he continued flicking through the channels.

A small hand touched his hair, and he heard a crooned, " _Oooh, soft_ ," before Mabel began to bury her fingers in his thick locks. "Yeah, but how'd you wind up here? How'd you end up opening the Mystery Shack?"

Dipper, Danny noticed, had perked up in the corner of the room, despite his eyes being fixed on a thick book scrounged up from the dark recesses of Stan's room. _Ten Things to Avoid When Talking to Women_ , the title read, and Danny bit back a chuckle, before he turned his attention back over to Mabel's question.

"Well, I met Stan in Mexico," Danny said, and watched both Mabel and Dippers' eyes widen.

" _Mexico_?" The fingers dropped from his hair, and suddenly his lap was occupied by a young, curious, pubescent female. "What were you doing in Mexico?"

"Yeah, what _were_ you doing in Mexico, Casper?" a new voice repeated sarcastically, and Danny's blue eyes flashed up to crinkle in amusement at Stan, who stood in the doorway of the living room.

"Well, a _certain_ _someone_ had landed himself in prison with the _funniest_ excuses, so _of course_ I had to go and spend some time with him, keep him company," Danny drawled, and both he and Stan laughed at the open-mouthed, befuddled faces on the twins' faces.

"You were in _prison_?!" Dipper squawked after a moment, "You _met_ in a prison?!"

"More like he stalked me there," Stan added cheerfully, and Danny tried not to laugh as the twins' brains seemed to explode at the added information. After a beat, Mabel seemed to recover.

"What was it like?" she asked curiously, reaching up to poke Danny's cheek, and the halfa beamed.

"Not bad; Stan and I tried to guess what the mystery meat in the daily dinners was," he replied.

"Popular vote was rat," Stan offered with a nod of his head, and the two of them had the delight of watching both twins turn a faint tinge of green.

"You know what?" Dipper's voice was higher than usual, and he closed his book, tossed it to the side, and rose to his feet. "I think – ah," his voice cracked, and he cleared it before continuing, "I think we should get to bed. G'night, Grunkle Stan, Danny!"

"Y-yeah, night!" And just like that, both twins were gone, the sound of their feet pounding up the stairs receding after a moment.

Stan and Danny waited with bated breath as a door faintly slammed before they burst into loud laughter.

"Oh man," Stan cackled, rubbing his eyes and shaking his head. "Did you see their _faces_?"

"I wonder what they'll think now that they know we've been to prison," Danny said mirthfully, before he rose to his feet. "Well, think we should head down, now that the twins are in bed?"

And chuckling, they headed into the gift shop, tapped the code into the vending machine, and descended into the dark basement.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Now that you've finally gotten the twins, I'm taking them away! >:)

Ford hissed and pulled his bleeding arm closer to his body. He had hoped that dimension 254 would have a clue to return him home, but it seemed like all avenues had been blocked. And he had run out of hope a _long_ time ago.

Maybe _Bill_ had a hand in it. In keeping him moving through dimensions, always traveling, but never able to return home.

But the sudden explosion to his left and the shrapnel that had sliced his arm open currently had him ducking into an alleyway of this fairly-sized town. He'd never heard of it before, but it was somewhere in this dimension's Colorado, and had seemed like a good place to rest before continuing to look for a solution. In fact, he had been _relieved_ at how _normal_ this place was, how _similar_ it was to his home dimension despite being decades ahead, that he had relaxed and decided to stay for a bit.

And, well, it _seemed_ like a good idea until unearthly green blasts had lit up the town in an eerie, washed-out color.

The citizens of this town, however, had reacted very oddly. They had quickly and efficiently moved away from the blast site, as if in a _practiced_ motion, and none of them were really _panicking_. It was almost as if they were used to all the explosions and disturbances.

Very odd, Ford concluded as he began to hastily tend to his arm. Thankfully, his foray into dimension number 147 had left him with a number of advanced healing supplies, and so his wound was quickly taken care of and knitting itself back into smooth skin.

With that taken care of, he dug into his heavy beige trench coat and pulled out a gun. It was sleek, with an otherworldly sheen and a strange shape. It hummed when he flicked it on, and Ford leaned around the corner of the alley, sharp brown eyes behind goggles cutting through the smoke and dust.

" _Tell me where he is_!" roared a mechanical voice, and a flash of green lit up the area again.

"Give it up, Ghost X!" a female voice bellowed, accompanied by another flash of green. "You think we _know?!_ We've been searching for _months_!"

"Jazz?" another female voice said sourly, exasperatedly, "It's _Skulker_."

Ghosts, huh? Stanford mused as the smoke began to clear. Down the street, he could make out a floating, glowing figure aiming guns at a pair of young, armored women. He hadn't really encountered ghosts before. Only one or two, before all his troubles _really_ started.

He glanced down at his gun, before he stowed it away. He didn't think that his laser blaster would have an effect on the being – it required the laser to hit a _physical_ entity to deal damage, which ghosts were not. Not really.

He glanced back down the street, and raised his gray bushy eyebrows. The two women began to battle against the ghostly being with a great deal of skill. Of course, that could have been inferred from the fact that they knew the ghost's _name_ – or, at least, one of them did. But the proficiency that they attacked the ghost with indicated that they had a lot of experience fighting ghosts.

However, he could hardly stand around and watch, especially when the redheaded woman received a blast to her chest with a shriek of pain. The force of the blast sent her rolling to the pavement nearby, her gun slipping from her grasp to land with a clatter near his feet.

" _Jazz!_ " the other woman screamed, a lean figure with dark hair, pale skin, and a ferocious scowl. She pressed a hand to her ear while she dodged another blast. "Tucker, what the _hell_ is taking you so long?!"

The ghost in the air cackled, and Ford watched with alarm and fear as panels opened in its shoulders, and rows and rows of rockets rose, all aimed at the redheaded woman.

Ford didn't even hesitate. He threw himself at the fallen, groaning figure, snatched her gun, and seized her along the waist. And with a grunt of exertion, he dragged her into the alley, stepped out, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

It was heavier than his laser gun, and awkward in his six-fingered grasp, but he didn't let that stop him. The green beam that exploded out of the gun's barrel slammed into one the rockets on Skulker's shoulders, and the ghost let out a roar of pain and fear when it set off a chain reaction in the other rockets. A small panel in its head opened, and Ford's eyebrows rose when he saw a smaller, green blob dart out of the escape hatch.

The young, black-haired woman aiming at the ghost let out a noise of surprise, purple eyes wide, and lowered her gun. However, she quickly seized a small container attached to her hip, aimed it at the ghost, uncapped it – wait, was that _a soup thermos_? – and pressed a button.

Ford watched in curiosity as a bright blue beam shot out to intercept the fleeing ghost.

"Fascinating," he muttered to himself as it seemed to suck the small, bean-shaped creature away from the suit and into the thermos. "Some kind of temporal space to hold a spiritual entity?"

The other woman glanced at him with surprise, before she smirked and nodded. Once the creature was safely inside the cylinder, she capped it and turned to face him. Behind her, the suit crashed to the ground, fizzling, unmoving, and _empty_.

Her eyes landed on the gun in his hand, and she smiled. "You were the one that shot Skulker's rockets?" she asked.

Interesting how her smile didn't reach her eyes, Stanford noted. They seemed to hold a weary, tired expression, despite the way her lips curved across her face.

Kind of the way he looked when he saw himself in the mirror.

Like he had given up.

"Well, yes," he muttered, handing the gun back and quickly shoving his hands into his pockets. He hoped she hadn't caught a glance of his hands. In the dimensions closest in similarity to his old one, his hands always seemed to stir a negative reaction. "Your friend is fine," he reassured the woman. "She's in the alley, just over there."

"Sam?" Speak of the devil, Ford thought as the redheaded woman appeared, one hand pressed to a blackened chest plate. She winced as she moved closer to the pair, and trained bright, teal eyes on her friend. "You got him?"

Sam smirked and shook the thermos in answer. Ford could hear a faint yell emanating from the sleek metal device, before the young woman planted it back onto her hip. Jazz relaxed, and winced again when she shifted painfully.

"Good. Of course, it had to happen the month that mom and dad are gone," she sighed. She then turned her attention to her rescuer. "Well, enough of that. I'm Jazz Fenton, and this is Sam Manson." Ford frowned. Something sounded oddly familiar in that statement, despite never having met the pair before, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

He watched as Jazz held out a hand, and the researcher shifted hesitantly, before he reached out to clasp her hand with his six-fingered one. They would find out eventually, he reasoned to himself with a touch of dread.

Jazz's eyes widened for a single moment, and flashed up to meet his gaze, but when she saw his expression of nervous anticipation and finality, she instead smiled and warmly shook his hand.

And Ford felt a part of himself relax. "Nice to meet you. The name's Stanford Pines." And something in the way that Jazz's eyes assessed him niggled his brain.

Huh, odd.

"So," he began, quickly dropping Jazz's hand. "Ghost hunters?"

"Yeah, started in high school and have continued it since," Sam said lazily, but her light violet eyes hadn't left his face, wary and assessing. "What about you? Government official?"

"What? Oh, no, never," Ford grumbled. "I've never had very good experiences with the government." _Of any dimension_ , he added in his mind, and watched the two women relax minutely. "More like a researcher, that got sucked up into his work." _Literally._

Jazz brightened. "Oh? What's your field of research? Mine is Psychology and how it affects ghostly and supernatural entities."

Ford shrugged. "I have twelve PhDs in various fields, but I do have a deep interest in the supernatural," he said, sheepishly wiggling his six fingers in lieu of an explanation. "But I wasn't expecting ghosts, to be honest."

"Really?" Jazz asked with wonder, before her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "I've never heard of a doctor by the name of Stanford Pines in anything supernatural during my research."

Sam tensed, and Ford saw her hands clench into fists. Slowly, he slid his hands into his pockets and tried to pretend the motion was casual. Carefully, his hand wrapped around the familiar grip of his laser gun.

"I –" he began, but another voice interrupted him.

"Sam! Jazz!" An African-American man hurried up to them, panting and wheezing for air. He bore thick dreadlocks, a small goatee, glasses, and a beanie.

Sam folded her arms in disapproval. "Tucker, you're too late," she chided, but Tucker shook his head.

"Sorry, I was at the library researching possible portals and ways to communicate with Danny –" he began, but Stanford's brain screeched to a halt.

_Danny. Jazz Fenton._

**_Danny Fenton_.**

" _And who is this?!"_

" _Danny Fenton, Stanley's traveling companion and best friend."_

" _You brought a person_ possessed _by a_ ghost _into my_ home _, Stanley?!"_

" _My name is Danny Fenton, and my parents' research into the paranormal accidentally turned me into a half-ghost, or halfa, if you will. Happy?"_

"Danny Fenton?" he breathed in surprise and shock, mind whirling. But, this was a completely different dimension than his own and he had met Danny back in Gravity Falls, in his _own dimension_ –

The three young adults before him froze, staring at him with a stunned silence, before they jumped into action.

A gun was pressed against his throat in an instant. "How do you know that name?! I thought you said you weren't part of the government!" Sam snarled in his face, her eyes burning with violet fire, and Stanford quickly raised his hands in the universal (or multi-universal, in his case) plea of surrender.

"I met him, back in the seventies!" Stanford exclaimed worriedly, his eyes darting between the three young adults surrounding him.

"That doesn't make sense!" Sam bellowed furiously, pressing the gun harder against his throat, and the strange device began to emit a dangerous hum. "Danny was born in the nineties! There's no way you could have met him then!"

"Wait, wait, Sam, do you think the portal sent him into an alternate _time_ as well as an alternate dimension?!" Tucker hastily added, shoving Sam's gun away from Stanford's throat. The tall man breathed a faint sigh of relief, before Tucker's previous words sent his mind screeching to a halt.

_Alternate dimension?! These people know about alternate dimensions?!_

Gloved hands seized his jacket, and Ford's forehead was nearly sent smashing into Jazz's own face as she shook him, roughly, _desperately_. "Have you seen him?! What does he look like?!"

"U-uh," he stammered, a little cowed by the ferocity Jazz seized him with. He racked his brain, trying to recall the exact events of that horrible night, nearly forty years ago. "He's uh, tall, with black hair and blue eyes, and, well, he tried to enter my home, which has wards against supernatural beings, but it seemed to work on him, but only part-way, before I discovered that he was half-ghost –"

The longer he talked, the wider the others' eyes became. Jazz's hands fell limply from his jacket, and to Ford's complete surprise, she burst into tears.

"That's him!" she sobbed, half-laughing, half-crying in relief. " _That's_ _him_!"

Sam was shaking her head in disbelief, but she gave him a wobbly, forgiving smile. Her eyes also seemed suspiciously wet, and Tucker, beside her, was mouthing, "No way," over and over in shock and surprise.

Ford shifted uncomfortably, but a hand on his shoulder, Jazz's hand, had him looking back at the redhead.

"Come with us, and tell us _everything_ ," she insisted.

And judging from the strength of the grip she had on his shoulder, he didn't have a choice but to agree.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So someone asked me about Clockwork...and tbh I totally forgot about him so let's just say he has no power in this dimension because I did not plan for him lmao

A few days after the twins settled in, and a disastrous "family bonding activity" that forced Danny to bail the twins and their Great Uncle out of the county jail for counterfeiting ("You're lucky I like you so much," Danny had growled to Stan in the middle of the night at the county jail, scribbling out a check, "Because otherwise your body would be in the middle of the woods, where no one can find it." Stan had drastically paled and had been uncharacteristically nice to Danny for a few days afterwards), Stan had stepped into the gift shop, burping from Pitt Cola, and holding a bunch of signs.

"…I wouldn't be surprised if the man of my dreams walked through that door right now!" Mabel finished cheerfully, but her expression quickly morphed into one of disgust when her Grunkle Stan stepped through the doorway. "Oh, why?" Mabel cried to the heavens in despair while Dipper laughed at her.

"Alright, alright, look alive, people!" Stan ordered, waving his free hand around. "I need someone to go hammer up these signs in the spooky part of the forest."

"Not it," both the twins immediately cried, and Soos, who was up on a stepladder with a screwdriver, announced, "Uh, also not it."

"Nobody asked you, Soos," Stan told the handyman flatly.

"I know," Soos said seriously, "and I'm comfortable with that." He took a bite out of a bar of chocolate, and annoyed, Stan turned to his only female employee.

"Wendy! I need you to put up these signs!"

Wendy didn't even look up from her magazine as she "tried" to grab for the signs. "I would, but I can't reach it," she said, faking grunts of exertion, her eyes still glued to the magazine article.

"I'd fire all of you if I could," Stan announced to the room, aggravated, before he decided, "Alright, I'll just pick someone to go. Eenie, meenie, miney – you."

"Aww, what?" Dipper complained when his Grunkle's eyes fell on him. "Grunkle Stan, whenever I'm in those woods, I feel like I'm being watched."

"Ugh, not this again," Stan groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I'm telling you, something is seriously weird about this town!" Dipper insisted. "Just today, my mosquito bites spelled out the word, "Beware!" He pushed up his sleeve, and showed his Great-Uncle the marks.

Stan squinted. "That says, "Bewarb," he pointed out, and flushing, Dipper scratched at his arm before pulling away. Stan sighed. "Look, kid, the monsters in the forest thing is local legend. Drummed up by guys like me, to sell merch to guys like that." He pointed at a particularly overweight, sweaty customer that was nearly salivating over a Stan bobblehead. "So quit being so paranoid! It's probably Danny half the time anyways – he practically lives in those woods," Stan finished, tossing Dipper the signs.

With a yelp, the teen barely managed to catch them all. "Alright, fine," he relented, and stalked out of the shop.

* * *

"Seriously?" Danny asked incredulously, frowning at the large group of gnomes trying to pin him down. He easily shook two of them off his arm, and watched them bounce like hacky-sacks. "It's been almost thirty years – this will never work."

"Just humor us!" the leader of the gnomes, Jeff, cajoled, standing on a nearby rock and flailing his arms. He was in good form today, Danny noticed, his clothes all clean, his beard freshly trimmed, his pointed hat perfectly straight and sleek; was he meeting with someone later? "We're practicing for our future queen!"

Danny rolled his eyes, and easily phased through the ropes. Some of the gnomes at his feet gnashed their teeth in frustration, while others let out dejected sighs as he slipped through their ropes… _again_. Danny shook his white-haired head in exasperation. "Seriously, guys, it was funny the first five times, but after thirty years of this, enough is enough. I've got work to do."

"You always say that!" Jeff cried, waving little fists. "You never give us the opportunity to practice mating techniques with a human! We need to be ready for when we find our queen!"

"Uh, first of all, _yikes_ , second of all, _never_ going to happen," Danny told the group, nose twisted up in disgust and mild alarm. "I'm leaving – wait." Danny stopped as a thought occurred to him. "Did you guys steal our prop cowboy hat, cover it in popsicle sticks, and set it on fire last week?"

Sweat broke out on Jeff's head, and the gnomes surrounding Danny all began to whistle "inconspicuously," each avoiding Danny's glowing green gaze with fervor. "I – uh, I have no idea what you're talking about," Jeff squeaked, rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet, studiously avoiding meeting the halfa's eyes, and Danny let out a loud, disbelieving snort.

"Sure, and I'm the Queen of England," he replied wryly, before he fixed Jeff with a firm glare. "Don't do it again, or I'm shaving off all of your beards in your sleep. Again."

Jeff's hands darted to his beard, and all of the gnomes shuddered in horror.

"You wouldn't!" Jeff shrieked girlishly, and the gnomes surrounding Danny whimpered in fear.

Danny's answering grin was a combination of teeth and promise. "Want to test that?"

"Fine, fine, we'll put the magical flame stick back where we found it!" Jeff hurriedly promised, and Danny snickered at the unfortunate gnome tribe.

"Good." And with that, Danny vanished.

He had a grocery trip to run.

* * *

An hour later, the halfa came back in time to hear Mabel proudly announce, "This girl's got a date! Woot woot!"

"Wait a second, in the thirty minutes I was gone, you already found a date?" asked Dipper, flabbergasted, and Mabel replied happily, "Guess I'm _irresistible_!" The doorbell rang, and Danny heard the pitter-patter of feet running.

"Coming!" Mabel called excitedly, and there was a pause before he heard Stan ask over Dipper's yelp of surprise, "Whatcha readin'?"

"U-uh, uh –" Dipper stammered, fumbling, before his voice lifted questioningly, " _Gold Chainz for Old Men_ Magazine?"

"That's a good issue," Stan commented obliviously, as Danny entered the room. "Danny, where've you been all day?"

Danny rolled his eyes, and held up a small bag of groceries. He dug into the bag and pulled out a package, before he tossed it to Stan. "Getting fudge and toffee peanuts."

"Casper, my man, you're the greatest friend an old man can ask for!" Stan cheered, easily catching the bundle of sweetened nuts and pretending to wipe a tear from his eye. "Rich, smart, caring – it warms the cockles of my blackened heart!"

"Hey everybody!" Mabel interrupted enthusiastically, standing in the doorway with a hunched figure in a black hoodie. "Come say hello to my new boyfriend!"

The hoodie was a little torn, and there were leaves sticking out of it, but the figure turned around to reveal a familiar face to Danny (was that strawberry jam on his chin?). The figure raised his hand, and said, hoarsely, "Sup."

"Hey," Dipper said slowly, and Stan took a gulp of his Pitt Cola.

"How's it hanging?" he asked casually.

Danny narrowed his eyes at the "teen" standing next to Mabel. Said teen had paled a little when he saw the halfa, but straightened in determination, as Mabel gushed, "We met at the cemetery! He's _really_ deep! Oh!" Her eyes widened as she felt the "teen's" arm. "Oh, uh, a little muscle there! What, uh, what a surprise!"

"So…what's your name?" Dipper asked awkwardly, and the "teen," his eyes still fixed on Danny, stammered, "Uh, N-normal – man!"

"He means Norman," Mabel corrected dreamily.

Dipper frowned in confusion, and pointed at the teen's face. "Are you bleeding?"

"It's – uh – jam!" Mabel's new boyfriend called out frantically, and Dipper's eyes narrowed suspiciously. He spotted the worried glance that "Norman" threw at Danny, but when Dipper's eyes landed on Danny, all he saw was a frown. Nothing strange at all.

Maybe Norman thought that Danny was an overprotective cousin or something, Dipper concluded.

Mabel, oblivious to all of this, gasped, and hit Norman hard in the chest. "I _love_ jam! Look at _this_!"

"So – uh, you wanna go – hold hands, or whatever?" Norman asked Mabel hesitantly, and Mabel giggled, flustered and enchanted.

"Oh, oh, of _course_! Don't wait up!" she called to her family before she zoomed out of the house. Norman did an about face, walked into the wall, and stumbled, and then trailed after her.

Dipper was now highly suspicious, and Danny could tell. But before he could say anything about it, Stan settled into the couch with his "Gold Chainz" magazine, and Dipper ran off without another word.

Danny purposefully waited until Stan was taking a sip of his Pitt Cola. "So, did you know that Mabel is currently dating a bunch of gnomes right now?"

Stan inhaled and spat out his drink in shock, and Danny laughed at him. "W-wait, what?!"

"Yeah, that was Jeff the Gnome at the top. They're probably all standing on top of each other underneath that jacket. I wonder how long until the twins find out," Danny wondered.

"Hmph," Stan grumbled, wiping his mouth and picking up his magazine again. "Just make sure the little gremlins don't hurt her or anything."

"I won't. They're mostly harmless anyways," Danny promised.

He neglected to mention that they were responsible for the "Burning Western Popsicle Incident" last week.

* * *

Danny tried to keep an eye on the kids.

Sort of, but not really. There wasn't much that they could encounter in the woods that was _truly_ dangerous that was within the Mystery Shack's borders, and he'd gotten a glimpse of Mabel flirting with her new "boyfriend" while Dipper suspiciously recorded the entire "date" with his video camera.

However, Danny did get sidetracked when a customer tried to demand a refund (Danny had a _thing_ for this – if someone could successfully stare the halfa down after ten minutes, they got the refund. And that rarely happened). Ten minutes later, Danny was watching the now-docile man leave, and he turned to Wendy, who had wandered back into the shop during the staring contest.

"Wendy, have you seen the twins?" he asked, and the redhead shrugged.

"I gave Dipper the keys to the golf cart a while ago, dunno where he went," she replied lazily, head already buried in a magazine. Danny frowned, and thought, _why the golf cart?_

Stan stepped back into the shack, humming happily at the successful conclusion of yet another tour full of moneybags and scams. He strode over to the cash register, roughly elbowed Danny out of the way, and turned to Wendy.

"Hey, you clocked out yet?" he demanded, and when Wendy just stared blankly at him, he scowled thunderously. "Get out of here! I'm not paying you for overtime!"

Wendy saluted and swiftly gathered her things, vaulting over the counter. "See ya tomorrow, Mr. Pines, Danny!"

Seconds later, she was out the door.

Danny turned his attention to Stan, who was beginning to tally the profits they made for that day. "Did Soos go home already?"

"Yeah," Stan grumbled, thumbing through bills with a small scowl still present on his weathered face. "Tried to camp out in the bathrooms again in order to stay longer."

Danny snorted in amusement. "Just be glad he's working for you for minimum wage."

At that moment, the twins stumbled in, looking worn out and covered in dust.

"What happened to you two?" Stan asked with mild surprise.

"Nothing," they chorused tiredly. Danny quirked an eyebrow. Did they encounter the rest of the gnome horde? Because that would explain their tired expressions and slumped positions. Also, Dipper seemed to have lost his hat, and they were both covered in dirt, leaves, and scuff marks.

Danny watched as Stan cracked a joke, but the pair hardly reacted. Mabel even looked a little upset.

"Uh, so, where's Norman?" Danny tried, ignoring the frown of realization that Stan shot him.

"Gone," Mabel sighed despondently. "I'm going to bed."

They watched the pair make their way to the "Employees Only!" door, when Stan abruptly cleared his throat.

"Hey, so, uh, wouldn't you know it, I accidentally overstocked on some supplies. You kids can go and pick something out, if you want," he suggested gruffly. Dipper and Mabel paused to stare at their great uncle in surprise. They were already used to his miser ways, and thus, seemed to find it a shock that their uncle was offering _anything_. They were fairly sure that, without Danny, they wouldn't even have food or necessities.

Dipper's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What's the catch?" he asked warily, and Stan harrumphed.

"The _catch_ is 'before I change my mind'," Stan snapped, finishing up the accounting for the night, and quickly, the twins scurried to pick something out.

"You're such a softie," Danny teased his old friend, and grunted in pain when Stan drove a fist into his chest. "Oof! Ow!"

"Shut up," Stan grumbled back, cheeks stained a slight pink.

Mabel zoomed around the store, looking for something to snag her attention, while Dipper immediately wandered over to the hats. He grabbed a blue and white hat with a pine tree logo, and fixed it on his head. Danny watched as the male twin adjusted it in the mirror, before nodding in satisfaction.

"Looks good on you," Danny complimented, and smiled at the grin that Dipper gave in reply.

Mabel dug through an old box, and grabbed something. "I'll have…" she spun around for dramatic effect, and brandished her new accessory. "A grappling hook!"

There was a pause as the three males eyed the weapon in her hands. Danny was pretty sure that used to be something of Stanford's before the portal sucked him in. "Uh, you sure you don't want, like, a doll or something?" Stan tried, but Mabel shook her head, eyes and smile gleaming.

"A _grappling hook_!" she insisted, and Stan gave up.

"Alright, fine," he sighed, and they watched as Mabel accidentally shot the hook through the roof and swung like a chimpanzee.

"I'll get the toolkit," Danny sighed in resignation, and left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, hey kids, ya like ghosts? Check out my twitch stream if you wanna see me and a bunch of dummies try to find ghosts in Phasmophobia (no this isn't a shameless plug, why would you think that): https://www.twitch.tv/jaybirdriot

**Author's Note:**

> Series first posted on August 30, 2016.


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